Staff safely evacuated from Lichfield factory blaze

It has been reported that around 50 workers at an industrial press factory in Staffordshire had to escape from the premises after an accidental fire was started last Wednesday morning.

An industrial press caught fire at the IMI Norgen factory in Eastern Avenue, Lichfield, around 1:40am and so six fire crews were called to the scene.

The blaze was eventually put out by the firefighters shortly before 4am as the fire had been prevented from spreading by the sprinkler system put in operation at the factory. This meant that the blaze could easily be controlled.

Staffordshire Fire and Rescue admitted that if it hadn’t been for the fire safety sprinkler system then then accidental fire would have taken much longer to be extinguished.

The station manager for the fire service, Mick Jahn said:

“We’d urge all businesses to fit sprinkler systems; there are misconceptions that should there be a fire several sprinklers will operate, this isn’t the case.

“They will only operate where the fire is located. As this incident has highlighted, they do prevent the spread of fires, and so minimise the economic cost of a fire – which is even more important during these difficult financial times.”