When battery factory blaze turned sky over city black with smoke

PUPILS were sent home in fear of toxic fumes when a Dundee factory packed with half a million batteries erupted in flames.

Firefighters were met by a wall of fire at the factory.

The May 2001 blaze at the TDI Batteries plant at the Claverhouse Industrial Estate would rank as one of the city’s worst but remains largely forgotten.

That’s because it happened two months after devastating blazes at Morgan Academy and Logie School, which both live long in the memories of Dundonians.

In 1991 American-owned battery company TDI set up manufacturing at the Wester Gourdie Industrial Estate and became one of the fastestgrowing manufacturers in the UK before moving to the Claverhouse Industrial Estate at the height of its operation.

The Dundee-based company employed more than 850 people to make lithium-ion batteries for mobile phones.

The alarm was raised at 1pm following a “huge explosion”.

The factory’s approximately 250 staff were evacuated and some fell over in the melee and had to be helped up in the frantic rush to make for the exit.

Firefighters rushed to the scene as a huge blaze engulfed the factory, sending a thick, black cloud of what was feared to be toxic smoke drifting westwards. The sky turned black. Workers reported the immediate chaos that broke out in the building.

One employee from the assembly room said: “After the explosion, everyone just started screaming. It was unbelievable. I have not seen or heard anything like it.

“We just started running out of the building. A few people fell but we went back to help them up – hopefully everyone is all right.’’

Another employee said: “It just went up like a tinder box.”

Tayside Fire Brigade’s telephone lines were jammed as people from across Dundee attempted to report the blaze, which could be seen for miles.

Police were asking employees to move back hundreds of feet from the scene for fear of coming into contact with the smoke.

There were real concerns the smoke was toxic.

The nearby Mill O’ Mains Primary School was immediately evacuated.

All homes in the immediate vicinity, and homes to the east and the north of the blaze, were also cleared.

A huge crowd of people from Fintry and Mill O’ Mains gathered to watch the firefighters attempting to put out the conflagration at the plant.

The plant stored more than 500,000 batteries, containing a number of potentially dangerous heavy metals, such as cadmium and nickel.

Firefighters had to contend with the possibility that the water would have caused some dangerous chemical reactions with the metals.

They decided it would be safer to let the flames die out naturally.

But more than 100 hours after black smoke began billowing out of the building, pockets of fire were still burning in the factory.

Assistant Divisional Officer Graham Hynie of Tayside Fire Brigade suggested that it could take several more days before the fire was finally out.

That’s exactly what did happen. Nearly a week after the blaze first emerged, fire investigators said they believed the explosion erupted in an area where batteries were being recycled.

Close examination of the building revealed the fire burned at 1600-1800C, which is almost twice as hot as a typical house fire.

This accounted for the rapid collapse of the building.

One Kingsway office worker, who saw the cloud of smoke as it rolled across the city’s skyline, said: “Having witnessed the Morgan Academy blaze from the very same window, I can say that (the TDI fire) puts it very much in the shade.”

Within a week of the fire, TDI Batteries was back in operation