Watch as fire commander provides update on major West Sussex incident

Steve Buchanan-Lee, a group manager at West Sussex Fire and Rescue, updates the public on the scale of a major incident at Climping.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, I'm Group Manager Steve Buchanan-Lee from West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service and I'm

00:04currently the Level 3 Silver Commander down here at the Waste and Recycling Centre for fire we have

00:08in Klimping. West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were called at approximately 10am this morning

00:13to a fully developed fire in the Recycling Centre and we attended initially with initial pumps

00:19coming from both Bognor Regis, Littlehampton and Worthing. The crews quickly identified that the

00:25whole building was involved and we now have 10 appliances at the scene with two aerial ladder

00:31platforms and two water carriers. The crews have worked really hard to work out the extent of the

00:37fire in the first instance and then surround it to a point where we're now happy to reduce our

00:41resources here, contain the fire and work with our specialist advisors from both the NFCC and the

00:47Environment Agency and our partner agencies through West Sussex County Council Resilience

00:52and Emergencies Team to ensure that the fire is fully extinguished and dealt with properly and

00:58also to work with our teams to make sure they are well rested and recuperated and returned to

01:03station so they can then be redeployed should other incidents happen within the county.

01:07We have a specialist hazardous material and environmental protection advisor from East

01:11Sussex Fire and Rescue Service with us and a tactical advisor for Waste and Recycling

01:17Centres from the National Fire Chiefs Council. We would like to thank those people particularly

01:21for their expertise and their support in gaining the control of the fire itself and especially all

01:26the hard work from the teams that have dealt with it this morning and will continue to deal with it

01:31for the next few days. Unfortunately we've had to close the A259 which is the road that passes

01:36the entrance to the site and we are looking to work with the police to reopen this at some time

01:40in the near future. We will provide you with updates of this as soon as we can. If you are in

01:45the vicinity of the fire you will still see that the smoke plume is present and whilst it is not

01:50very high and not very dense we will still advise people to make sure that if they can see it or

01:55smell it please stay indoors, close your windows and doors and keep out of the way of the fire.

02:01We'd also like to remind people that there are specific safety campaigns that we'd like to

02:05emphasise at this point particularly when dealing with waste and recycling and make sure that all

02:10items such as lithium-ion batteries are disposed of correctly and that all items of waste and

02:14recycling are put in the correct bins so they can be sorted properly at such sites throughout the

02:18county. I'd like to thank again all the crews who've arrived this morning and worked really hard.

02:23We will be here for a number of days and we're now working on a specialist tactical plan

02:28to ensure that those firefighters are rested accordingly and that our

02:31resources are returned to the rest of the county as required.