FORMER CHEMICAL SITE TARGETTED BY ARSONISTS

FIRE crews spent almost three hours tackling a blaze started deliberately at a former chemical plant on Anglesey.

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service were called to an office block at the former Octel site in Amlwch shortly after 4pm on Saturday.

The room set on fire was completely destroyed, while most of the first floor of the building was damaged by the blaze.

Two crews from Amlwch and Benllech used a hose reel jet and four breathing apparatus to extinguish the fire. They stood down at 6.42pm. A fire service spokesman said: “The fire was a result of deliberate ignition. No injuries were reported.”

Local councillor Aled Morris Jones said: “Thankfully the blaze was put out and there was no loss of life. It is terrible that people broke in to the building and deliberately set it alight. There could have been a serious injury. Hopefully, the site will now be made secure.”

For more than 50 years, the plant employed 120 people to extract bromine from seawater, before closing in 2005. It was developed as a bromine plant in 1952 and was chosen because of the depth of the sea in the area, the strong tidal flow and Gulf Stream sea temperatures.

In 1994, one of the biggest fires ever seen on Anglesey started at the Octel plant. A 15-mile exclusion zone was declared around the island’s north coast after rubber sheeting in one of the plant’s towers caught fire.

The smoke could be seen from as far away as the Isle of Man, while personnel from half of all the fire stations in Gwynedd attended the scene. Luckily the tower had been out of service for six weeks due to maintenance work, meaning there were no chemicals inside it.