It’s likely the Hamilton firefighters who answered the alarm at the Icepak coolstores at Tamahere on April 5 had no idea that flammable propane was being used in the plant.
Firefighters’ Union national secretary Derek Best told NZPA that “until this particular incident, to the best of my knowledge, there was no realisation in the fire service that explosive gases were being used as coolants.”
Best, commenting after the propane-ethane gas used at Icepak Tamahere was identified in a Labour Department report, said as far as he knew the only businesses that used propane were storage depots and petrol stations.
There were no procedures in place to deal with cool stores that were cooled with propane, he said.
“The expectation when you’re going to one of those is that you’re dealing with an ammonia of some type or an inert gas.
” …that this cool store and it would seem some others are now being cooled by explosive gases is something the Fire Service is going to have to look at in the future,” Best said.
The Fire Service is investigating the Tamahere fire which took the life of Senior station officer Derek Lovell and injured seven others firefighters.
