Huge fire rips through Wednesbury skip firm site
Fire ripped through a waste unit containing 300 tons of rubbish at a skip firm in the Black Country.
Crews took an hour to contain the blaze at the Fill a Skip site in Wednesbury.
They were called to the Portway Road unit at 8.25pm last night after receiving reports of a fire in a large metal unit.
Four engines arrived to find a fire raging in one corner of the building.
No homes or business were evacuated as a result of the blaze. It is still not known what started the fire.
Watch Commander Sean Stewart, of Tipton Blue Watch, led the command unit at the scene.
He said: "When we arrived it was already burning well, but within an hour or so we had the fire under control. Firefighters will remain on site all night until we can get a better assessment of the fire in the daylight.
"Diggers and heavy machinery will then be brought in to turn over the waste so we can properly dampen it down."
"The crews have worked extremely hard to tackle this fire within an hour," he added.
Fire chiefs said investigations into the fire would continue today.
Watch Commander Stewart added: "No personnel were on site at the time and attempts have already been made to contact representatives from the company to make them aware of the situation."
A section of the road up to The Nelson Pub was also closed overnight to allow firefighters to stop the smouldering rubbish catching light again.
It follows three other fires at waste sites in the region in the past year, at the Jayplas Site in Oldbury, Premier Waste in Perry Barr and the Laurence Recycling plant in Kidderminster.
The Jayplas fire was sparked by a floating sky lantern landing on thousands of plastic and paper being stored in a recycling yard.
