Cardiff’s fire fighters had to skip breakfast this morning as they got an early call reporting a rubbish fire, which in the end turned out to be a building fire at the Royal Mail sorting office. Fire fighters were called to the Royal Mail centre on Penarth Road at 8.50am, after the blaze broke out in a loading bay near the delivery office just outside the Royal Mail depot’s main building.

Four fire engines attended the scene and two water bowsers were used to bring the fire under control. The fire damaged a few Royal Mail vans parked nearby but no one was injured, all 150 workers were evacuated safely and sent home for the day.

Royal Mail said customers in the CF10, CF11 and small parts of CDF23 and CF24 postal areas will have their mail delivered as soon as post men are able to get into the building again. Business mail is thought to be unaffected and collections will take place with an earlier final posting time of between 3:30pm and 4:30pm. General Manager for south and west Wales, Mr Paul Kelly said:

“We’ve had a major fire here at the sorting office this morning. Services will be disrupted this morning. We will not be delivering any post around Cardiff this morning.”

He also said they were in touch with their Swansea office and would be contacting colleagues at Bristol and Gloucester for assistance.

Last Friday, the services for the Channel Tunnel had to be interrupted due a fire that started when a lorry on board caught fire and flames spread quickly to other vehicles.

The fire started just before the French end, rescue teams arrived at the scene to control the flames and help 32 passengers evacuate through a service tunnel, most of them were lorry drivers, seven were English.

Some of the passengers were taken to a hospital with respiratory problems due to smoke inhalation. At the time there were no passenger trains in the tunnel.

The destruction caused by the flames are the worst in the tunnel’s history, French authorities said that in the main area of the fire temperatures reached 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832F), fire fighters managed to control the fire at around 7am UK time and spent another 2 hours putting minor fires out.

It took 300 fire fighters to control the fire and it is likely that Euro star will suffer significant delays to its services for some time.

The damage caused by the fire in 1996 took six month to repair and last week’s fire was much worst.

Recently a court case illustrated the cost of a “responsible person” not correctly discharging their responsibilities for fire safety.

Following a fire at a hotel in Lancashire, managing director Dennis Brunt was fined £18,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,750 after the blaze at the Royal Hotel in Waterfoot. Eight people, including a small baby and its mother were rescued from the building in the early hours of the 6th March 2006.

The company responsible for the hotel admitted responsibility for a number of offences in court.

These included:

·    Not completing a fire risk assessment
·    Failure to maintain clear emergency exits
·    Failure to maintain alarms and detection systems
·    Failure to protect means of escape
·    Not training the staff in fire safety

Brunt, whose firm used to be responsible for the pub, admitted to six offences at Reedley Magistrates Court.

This was a major fire and luckily there were no major injuries or fatalities, or the person responsible could well have been facing charges related to loss of life.

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