Firefighters monitor battery recycling plant in Darlaston over blaze fears
Firefighters have monitored a battery recycling plant in the Black Country during the heatwave as concerns mounted over a serious fire risk.
Crews turned out to EcoBat Solutions, at Crescent Works Industrial Park in Darlaston, firstly on Monday at 2pm as temperatures started to soar.
The incident involved a large number of pallets containing end-of-life lithium ion and lithium metal batteries at the plant off Willenhall Road.
The temperatures of the batteries were found to be at a level which posed a serious fire risk due to the ambient heat reaching highs of around 36°C (96.8F).
Staff at the site had made the early move which allowed firefighters to "provide early intervention before the situation escalated", fire chiefs said.
Crews worked with on-site staff and our own hazardous materials officers to implement a plan to cool the batteries using water taken from a nearby canal.
And following this, temperatures registered had dropped to safer levels overnight and crews have made revisits to monitor the situation.
A spokesman for West Midlands Fire Service said: "We no longer have crews at the battery place, but we will be making a revisit (on Wednesday) morning to check that everything's still all OK."
It comes after several fires took place at the site, previously known as G&P Batteries Limited, with the latest of them coming in 2017 when a man was left with multiple injuries.
The man, then aged 26, suffered wounds including cuts, bruises and burns to his hands and was rushed hospital. A West Midlands Fire Service spokesman said a 'severe' fire had been burning in an area used to store lithium batteries.
And in 2014 there were two major fires at the plant, with the first in January seeing up to 50 firefighters called in to tackle the blaze in an outside yard in the early hours of the morning. Several tons of batteries were well alight during the fire, which was believed to have been started by waste battery stock kept in the yard.
A month later, in February, and 50 firefighters were called out again to tackle a blaze which led to 40 staff fleeing from the scene.
And back in March 2008, around 80 firefighters from across the region were called in to tackle another blaze where the flames reached 100ft high.
