Blaze battled at Banbury coffee factory
The conflagration at Jacobs Douwe Egberts’ (JDE’s) factory was attended by crews from Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Northants fire stations. Up to 10 firefighting appliances were dispatched.
Crews were faced with a fire on an external roof platform at the former Kraft/ Mondelēz site.
Banbury fire station tweeted images of the damage caused by the fire.
While firefighters brought the blaze under control, staff were evacuated from areas of the factory near the fire. No one was injured.
Crews from Bicester fire station helped tackle the blaze. Below is a tweet sent during the incident.
23:04 Crew in #banbury supporting @firebanbury at ten pump fire at mondalez with crews from @WarksFireRescue@northantsfire@OxonFireRescuepic.twitter.com/hENe8ekiDK
— Bicester Fire Stn (@firebicester) May 28, 2017
No staff were injured
Incident commander station manager Simon Sumners said “Crews quickly got firefighting jets on to the fire and worked closely with the site engineers to make sure the fire damage to the building was limited.”
Production at the site was shut down, but was restarted soon after the fire was extinguished.
Officers from Thames Valley Police closed the nearby road while firefighters dealt with the incident at the factory (see tweet below).
Road closure between Tesco Extra and The Musketeer pub, no access to Tesco or Mcdonalds #burgerscanwait#fire#keepingyousafepic.twitter.com/nnnEGCbuqt
— TVP Banbury (@TVP_Banbury) May 27, 2017
The cause of the fire was unknown and an investigation is currently underway.
Investigation is currently underway
A spokesman from JDE said: “JDE would like to thank the Oxfordshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service for their fast actions and for how they worked closely with our incident team to minimise the fire and disruption to the site. We are now working closely with them to understand the cause.”
The fire at JDE’s Banbury factory comes 10 months after a blaze at the same site which was attended by seven fire crews.
Last year JDE corporate affairs director Lindsay Wright told FoodManufacture.co.uk that the 2016 fire had started in one of the bean roasters.
“Due to the nature of the coffee roasting process, JDE has a number of safety protocols in place across all sites designed to quickly contain these types of isolated incidents,” said Wright.
