By CASEY NEILL
AN “orange wall of fire” that engulfed a Dandenong South flooring factory Thursday night could have turned deadly.
QEP Australia managing director Bruce Maclaren was in the company’s Dunlopillo Drive ofice when the flames took hold in the warehouse about 6pm on 19 September.
“We high-tailed it out of there, called the fire brigade,” he said.
“By the time the first appliance arrived the whole thing was already stuffed.
“Had it happened three hours earlier you’d have 50 people in there.
“The pace that I saw the fire take hold and literally level the place to the ground, I hate to think about what might have happened.”
More than 30 fire vehicles and 100 CFA and MFB firefighters fought for 90 minutes to bring the blaze under control.
Crews remained at the scene over the weekend as it continued to smoulder.
The risk of wall and roof collapse has hampered investigations and the fire’s cause is still unknown.
“The place is trashed. It’s going to be pushed over,” Mr Mclaren said.
He told The Journal on Friday that heavy machinery was due to start the demolition process on Saturday.
Mr Mclaren said the site had been home to the flooring distribution business for the past eight years and contained carpet, vinyl flooring, underlay, timber, adhesives, tools and more.
The $4 million in burning stock sent a toxic plume of smoke over Dandenong and surrounding suburbs and prompted a CFA warning for residents with breathing difficulties to stay indoors.
“From a company point of view we’re trying to keep our business momentum going,” he said.
“We’ve been performing quite well in a difficult market and we have long-term and valued employees.”
About 50 people work at the site.
“And we’ve got three other smaller location warehouses around metropolitan Melbourne,” Mr Mclaren said.
“We will be relocating some of the staff to those.
“We’ll probably ask some staff to take annual leave, between four and eight weeks to get back to some sort of trading environment.”
Company management met on Friday and will formulate a plan of action over the coming days and weeks.
“We’re keeping staff fully informed,” he said.
CFA senior station officer Rick Owen said firefighters did an outstanding job protecting two neighbouring businesses.
“The blaze could easily have spread, creating an incredibly dangerous situation,” he said.
– Picture: KEITH PAKENHAM – CFA
