The Militant - August 17, 2015 -- Townspeople angry about fatal fire at English mill

Vol. 79/No. 29 August 17, 2015

Townspeople angry about
fatal fire at English mill

BY PETE CLIFFORD
BOSLEY, England — Grieving townspeople are angry after an explosion ripped through the Wood Treatment Ltd’s mill in this town 25 miles south of Manchester July 17, killing three and injuring many of the mill’s 50 workers. A fourth worker is missing and feared dead.

A police cordon surrounds the area of the mill. Eight days after the explosion firefighters’ water hoses were still spraying the collapsed, smoldering wreck of the four-story building.

This nonunion mill made linoleum flooring out of finely ground sawdust, called wood flour, and highly flammable petrochemicals. The River Dane that runs past the plant turned blue after the explosion released 5,000 liters of kerosene.

According to the Guardian, there were fires at the plant in 2010 and 2012, and the owners had been warned of the risk of an explosion by the government-run Health and Safety Executive in 2013. That agency issued an “improvement notice” regarding the storage of liquid petroleum gas, telling the company the risk should either be “eliminated or reduced.” Two weeks before the explosion local officials were on site responding to a complaint about saw dust.

Kelvin Barks, brother of William Barks, one of those killed, was interviewed by ITV News July 22. He said his brother told him that the factory was “a disaster waiting to happen.” Barks said the plant dated “back to somewhere in the First World War.” He said his brother had tried to get the bosses to order parts to make machinery safe, but they refused unless a machine stopped. He said the mill had no regular fire drills and the sprinkler system often wouldn’t work.

When the factory exploded temperatures hit 1,000°C (1,800°F). “It was like a plane crashing,” local pub owner Gwyneth Jones told the Militant during a July 25 visit.

In a nearby pub, the Harrington Arms, Susannah Lynn and other locals were counting out more than £11,000 ($17,000) collected at a fundraising event the previous night to aid the families of those killed. Some 1,000 people came, she said, many from the surrounding region of this tiny village with no more than 50 houses. “It shouldn’t have happened,” she said of the explosion.

Alison Tottle, warden at St. Mary’s Church here, told the Militant how anger had mounted when the mill owners had initially stalled on making any statement or expressing sympathy with the relatives of those killed.

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