‘Green’ blaze

A fire destroyed a Dandenong South factory, but luckily it was an environmentally friendly manufactu
A MASSIVE blaze at a GreenCare Developments’ Dandenong South factory on the weekend could have threatened the community if it wasn’t an environmentally friendly manufacturer.
The Kitchen Road factory, which manufactures perfume, cosmetics and ‘green’ cleaning products, went up in flames at 1.45pm on Saturday after a new piece of equipment malfunctioned.
But CFA Operations Manager Trevor Owen said there was no risk, despite chemicals being involved in the blaze.
“There was no risk to the community at the time, even though there was a thick black smoke cloud,” Mr Owen said.
“The only notable chemical was ethanol which was burnt out in the explosion and all other products were environmentally friendly so there was no risk at all.”
Mr Owen said he believed the fire started while staff were using a new mixing machine and new chemicals.
“Something has gone amiss; the fire started in the machine and quickly moved onto neighbouring equipment.”
Staff were evacuated and there were no injuries.
Approximately 40 firefighters attended the inferno and battled the flames from inside the building to stop it spreading.
“The first arriving crew did a great job of stopping the fire from extending further into the building and possibly other buildings,” Mr Owen said.
“It was a gutsy move considering the amount of chemicals involved, which ended up saving half of the factory.”
Significant damage was caused to the manufacturing space and there was also some damage to the office area.
The fire was declared under control at 2.20pm however crews remained on the scene for several hours afterwards. A spokesperson for GreenCare Developments said they could not comment because an investigation was underway.