16 hours Ago By Glen Humphries
The commercial laundry of disability employer Flagstaff was destroyed by fire on Thursday night. Subscribe now for unlimited access . Login or signup to continue reading Flagstaff CEO Rodney Von Clark said around 130 people worked in the laundry and they all will be notified and be allocated other jobs until the Unanderra facility is up and running again.
"I am relieved that the site was unoccupied at the time and that none of our employees were at risk and nobody was hurt," Mr Von Clark said. "Now our focus is to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our employees as well as our customers. "We'll be ensuring that we engage all our employees with ongoing employment.
There's other areas that we'll be able to use so that we can meet up our customer needs but also provide that employment." Mr Von Clark said the facility took care of the washing for aged care providers and other groups; until the Unanderra building is up and running, Flagstaff will use its Nowra laundry. Fire and Rescue NSW Duty Inspector Chad Wallace said the fire started around 8.
30pm on Thursday, with two crews responding. Once they realised the fire was burning in a 50 square metre building with structures attached on two sides, extra crews were called in to help - including a ladder crew to fight the blaze from above. "The firefighters had to cut their way into the building initially and two different firefighting crews aggressively attacked that fire from either side of the building," Insp Wallace said.
"They did a great job and managed to save it to one part of the building. That part of the complex has been totally destroyed. "But because of the work that firefighters did in those initial 30 minutes, it did minimize the damage to just that area, and it means the rest of their operations here will hopefully be up and running here by Monday.
" Insp Wallace said the crews contained the fire within those first 30 minutes but it took three to four hours for it to get it under control. "For those first 30 minutes with the crew either side, they contained it - it was still heavily involved in fire, but it wasn't going anywhere," he said. "That then lets the firefighters concentrate on their efforts on the other things that were impacted.
There was a chemical storage section in the building that was initially impacted. "So we had a crew specifically assigned just to look after those chemicals because it definitely becomes an issue if it's alight." The commercial laundry had plenty of linen inside, which is very combustible and had an effect both during and after the fire.
Insp Wallace said fire crews would remain on the scene on Friday to deal with the linen, which could still reignite the fire. "It can have an effect, especially when it's tightly-bound linen, that can smolder for days or even multiple days," he said. "So it probably did contribute to fire spread originally and it does make the fire a lot harder to get out.
"We'll have crews here all day today just putting out spot-fires because we've extinguished the fire and in about 10 minutes time it could spark up again. So we'll have crews here, just keeping control of it for the rest of the day and at some point today we'll probably hand back to Flagstaff Group." Insp Wallace said they would also be working to determine the cause of the fire, which at this stage was "highly likely" to be accidental.
"There are no immediate signs of any suspicious activity or illegal entry to the building - firefighters have to cut their way in," he said. "There's nothing to indicate there was anything suspicious, so it's likely at this stage it's either something accidental or potentially an electrical fault." I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers.
I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading. I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers.
I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading. More from Latest News Newsletters & Alerts DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team.
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