Recycling warehouse is destroyed by blaze

Jamie MacDonald • Published 17 Feb 2010 11:23 Comments 1 Comment

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(pic David Robertson)

DOZENS of firefighters from all over Central Scotland have been involved in tackling a blaze at ACE Recycling Group's premises in Alloa.

Fire broke out late on Thursday night and quickly engulfed the warehouse where the social enterprise is based.

The cause of the fire has still to be determined although a spokesperson for Central Scotland Fire Brigade said they were not treating it as suspicious.

The emergency services were contacted just after 11pm with five appliances, from Alloa, Tillicoultry and Stirling, attending immediately.

Initially the fire fighters attempted to tackle the blaze from outside the building before venturing inside with the use of breathing apparatus. There was a large quantity of paper and textiles being stored in the warehouse on Greenfield Street.

Mike Mulraney, the property owner, told the Advertiser, "The primary thing is that nobody was hurt. Buildings can be rebuilt but lives can't, we have lost 30,000 square feet but in the context it isn't that bad."

By 1am on Friday there were 28 firefighters in attendance and later in the morning relief crews from Larbert, Falkirk, Dunblane, Alloa and Stirling arrived to take over from those who provided the initial response. The last appliance left at 9.30am on Saturday.

All the goods stored inside the warehouse for recycling have been destroyed but ACE has managed to keep operations running and the Mulraney Group has provided them with alternative accommodation.

Mr Mulraney continued, "The fire was reasonably extensive and pretty much destroyed everything inside although there is not a problem with the building. Structural engineers have been out and the building can be repaired.

"In dealing with the fire everything has gone as close to text book as it could. Our fire management plans worked well."

Disruption for other tenants at the former Carlsberg depot was kept to a minimum although the fire was particularly frustrating for Wilson Turnbull.

The 22-year-old recently began renting property backing on to the ACE warehouse and he had been working towards opening his new business in the next few weeks.

He said, "I'd been working towards opening for the past two months and was due to start trading this month."

Luckily nothing was damaged at One Stop Body Shop which, when it does open, will offer spray painting and panel beating.

"When I went to see what was happening and got into the unit you could hear creaking and cracking from the heat next door," said Wilson.

"I was in a panic as I hadn't sorted insurance out at the time."

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Danny Mitchell
Unregistered User
Feb 22, 20:28
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It was sad to read about the fire at the former Calsberg depot but thankfully there was no loss of life,and hopefully no jobs will be lost as a result.If I am correct, the former Carlsberg factory was built on the site of the Patons wool store in Greenfield Street that was itself completely destroyed by fire on 28th September 1962. My father,John Mitchell worked as a woolsorter at that time in the Patons building.As a direct result of that fire our lives changed forever when we moved to Darlington so that my father could carry on working.

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