Huge fire third at recycling factory this year
An “insane” blaze at a Melbourne recycling centre is likely to burn into the night after the factory caught fire for the third time this year.
Businesses near the Coolaroo blaze, 19km north of the city, have been evacuated and others locked down after the fire started at SKM Recycling.
A relief centre was set up for residents in a Broadmeadows aquatic centre and a community meeting held.
An MFB spokesman said he expected the blaze to burn overnight.
Clarissa Garrow, who works directly across the road from the fire, said it was “insane”.
“No one can get in and no one can get out. It’s really bad. Ash and papers are flying everywhere.”
The blaze is thought to have begun in a pile of recycled materials outside the Maffra Street factory.
Abby Krtar, another worker at another nearby business, said: “We can see smoke through the windows, ash is falling.”
It took 65 firefighters to put out a fire at the centre in June and another 130 to put out a major blaze in February. “This is a regular thing, on my first day there was a fire there,” Garrow said.
MFB acting deputy chief officer Ken Brown earlier said firefighters were trying to protect a nearby en- gineering building as ash and smoke spewed from the factory. “We’re surrounding this fire, we’re trying to contain it,” he said.
A Watch and Act alert remains in place for five suburbs — Coolaroo, Broadmeadows, Jacana, Campbellfield in Dallas — in northern Melbourne. The MFB urged people in those areas to take shelter indoors. The state’s Environment Protection Authority said it had deployed air monitoring equipment.