Fire chief slams food factories as death traps

Fire-fighters have called for improved design and construction of food factories and cold stores following a number of blazes which have cost lives and wreaked millions of pounds in damage.

Frank Sheehan, West Midlands Fire Service chief fire officer, said he was particularly concerned about the use of composite sandwich panels with combustible insulating centres which produced large quantities of toxic smoke. Sheehan also expressed concern about the growing use of plastic pallets which caused "flowing fuel fires"

But he reserved his harshest criticism for the poor design and construction of buildings in which, he said: "Food safety tends to take precedence over fire safety."

He said buildings were often not compartmentalised, which would delay the passage of a fire, and used panels which gave way under heat. Frequently, he said, there was mechanical damage to panels or they had been penetrated by service ducts and flues that provided pathways for fires to spread.

Sheehan called for greater use of non-combustible mineral fibre insulating panels, rather than ones made with expanded and extruded polystyrene or polyurethane, and those made with polyisocyanurate and modified phenolic.

Sheehan said, in his opinion, mineral fibre panels were better, although he accepted there were problems with moisture pick-up in some circumstances.

The problem for fire-fighters, said Sheehan, was that it was often difficult to determine whether panels were constructed of very combustible fillings or not.

He was more likely to send his officers in to fight a fire if he knew that panels contained an inert material, not a combustible one, ?said Sheehan.

He also called for more widespread adoption of sprinkler systems in food factories.

"I will be beating the drum for fire suppression systems," he said.