A BIG FIRE broke out at a waste recycling shop and adjacent yard where piles of waste were stacked in Thung Khru district at 8.30 p.m. last night (Apr. 1) with firemen helped by workers and neighbours taking 40 minutes to put it out, Matichon newspaper said.
Upon being alerted of a fire breaking out at the workers’ accommodation and spreading across the yard where large amounts of waste was stored, Thung Khru police station quickly arranged for three district fire trucks and five from Bangkok Disaster Mitigation Volunteers Centre to go put it out.
When the firemen arrived at the large shop and yard covering around two rai they found that the blaze was raging across the workers’ accommodation and waste recycling yard at the rear. The workers and neighbours were trying to extinguish it by spraying water and chemicals but the large amount of waste and strong wind caused the flames to spread fiercely.
The firemen took 40 minutes to put out the fire after which they found that the three-metre by four-metre workers’ units were completely destroyed as were nearly half of the waste stored at the yard, including both that which had been sorted and not sorted.
Upon being questioned the owner’s wife, Ms. Thiphawan Raksri, 25, said before the fire erupted the workers were putting things away in the shop in preparation to shut it down for the night. She had just walked down to drink water near the workers’ units when she heard a loud explosion at one of them after which the fire erupted and quickly spread.
She phoned the police and called the workers to spray water and chemicals to put it out but because waste being recycled is very flammable it quickly spread being fanned by strong wind.
Police initially assume that the fire was caused by a short circuit but are questioning the owner further before reaching a conclusion. Damage was estimated to be to the tune of hundreds of thousands of baht.
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Fire raging through the waste recycling shop and yard last night. Photo: Matichon
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