Arson suspected at Stallingborough pallet yard

A large fire broke out at a wooden pallet yard in Stallingborough and it is thought that it may have been started deliberately.

Seven appliances from Humberside Fire and Rescue Service stations at Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham and Hull attended the fire on 31st December.

A spokesman for the service said: “There were a large number of wooden pallets so we sent a large number of appliances, as we knew we had to get the fire under control quickly. We needed so many pumps so we could section off the fire and fight it from all angles to stop it spreading.”

Paul Smith, of Pallet Services Limited, said that the business would recover. He said: “It is a shock start to the year but I am extremely glad that no one was in the yard at the time and no one has been injured in the incident. The fire was a big one and most of the stock has been destroyed, so rebuilding will not be an easy process – but we will definitely reopen again. This is an awful situation to be in but we have a lot of customers and they are very important to us so, with the help of some very hard-working suppliers and staff members, we will rebuild. The police and fire services are treating the incident as suspicious so, for their purposes and the purposes of our insurers, I do not want to say any more at this stage.”

Eyewitness Matthew Leggott said: “There are a lot of industrial properties round there, so it was obviously difficult, but they managed to source some water locally in the end. I was surprised that they didn’t even shut the road off until quite late on but given that it was a Saturday and New Year’s Eve, there weren’t many people around. Had it been a normal trading day it could have been more dangerous and much more disruptive.”