Fire crews in three hour battle

FIRE crews were called to a blaze in recycling furnace at Novelis at Latchford Locks Works on Thelwall Lane, Warrington.
The fire was located on top of the furnace – used for melting down aluminium cans.
This made it a difficult incident to tackle as molten metal inside the furnace meant crews were unable to use water as this would have cooled the metal too rapidly and cracked the furnace – posing a risk to firefighters from heated liquid spilling over.
Crews faced intense heat as they fought the blaze over a number of hours using sand and dry powder extinguishers. A hydraulic platform was used to enable the crews to tackle the fire from above.
The blaze started at around 1pm yesterday (Wednesday) and it was 4.30pm before it was extinguished. Even after that, firefighters stayed on site for most of the evening to ensure all buildings were safe and there were no further hot spots.
The works was evacuated while the incident was ongoing.