Commander praises teams’ ‘superb’ response to crisis
THE incident commander leading Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service’s response to the mill fire has said the “superb” actions of early attending crews helped prevent a much more serious incident.
Speaking last Thursday evening at the scene, Area Manager Mark Hutton also praised the team effort of all agencies involved in helping to mitigate the impact of the blaze, which was attended by 14 appliances from across the region.
He said: “Appliances were sent from Lancashire and from our neighbouring fire service Greater Manchester, and the initial arriving officers in charge deemed that quite a significant increase in resources were immediately required because the fire was spreading quickly and had the potential to spread to neighbouring premises. I can reassure people that the neighbouring premises have been evacuated as a precautionary measure and there have been no injuries at this incident.
“I think the early attending crews have done a superb job in keeping the fire located to the building of origin.
Indeed there’s quite a number of buildings attached to the affected building, which are and remain unaffected by fire, which is a good achievement by the crews.
“The cause of the fire is under investigation, but we have no reason to believe there’s anything suspicious at this incident at this time.
“I would like to pass on my thanks to all the other agencies that have been supporting us this evening - including Lancashire Police, NW Ambulance Service - who were here in a precautionary sense - the local authority including Lancashire County Council and Rossendale council for their support in establishing a local rest centre, and for the utility companies that have been working with us as well.
“As ever in incidents of this scale it’s a real team effort.”