Dramatic Images received of the Buncefield Oil Depot Fire

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BUNCEFIELD                                Article from Jan/Feb issue curtasy FBU Firefighter magazine

One of the biggest explosions ever felt in the UK was followed by one of the biggest ever fires. Firefighter pieced together a first draft of what happened at Buncefield.

At 06.02 on 11 December a massive explosion physically shook Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, damaged property several miles away and was heard as far away as The Netherlands. Huge flames reached hundreds of feet through a still dark sky, creating the impression of a false early dawn.
It was to become one of Britain's largest fires. A miracle of timing and sheer luck meant no one died.
The Sunday morning quiet was shattered by a further series of smaller explosions. For 30 minutes the 999 public service telephone system was swamped with calls with the public finding it difficult to get as far as "fire, police or ambulance".
These calls would never have made it as far as
proposed new regional controls, even the ones meant to hold the overflow. The mobile network was jammed.

Crews from Hemel Hempstead station - facing a cut of four firefighters - reached the scene around 06.08 and found the northern sector of the 90-acre Buncefield Oil Depot had been badly damaged. Six fuel tanks were alight and two more damaged. At 06.10 the officer in charge declared a major incident and almost the entire whole time Herrtfordshire brigade which was on duty was mobilized.
Across the county hundreds of alerters were bleeping, pulling in Hertfordshire's Retained fire-firefighters. At 06.27 crews from Bovingdon retained station - threatened with closure - arrived to the sounds of further explosions ripping through the site and setting fire to more fuel tanks.
The 41 injured were taken to a local Accident and Emergency threatened with closure by regional health barons, assisted by Herts police officers exhausted by a night dealing with those taking advantage of having too much time to drink and firefighters in a brigade threatened with major cuts and station closures.
Crews poured in including from Radlett's retained station - another threatened with closure - and before long there were nearly 100 on the fireground.
The control in Stevenage was flooded by those calls which got through the PSTN but all around, surrounding brigades as far as West Mids were holding repeat calls.
London control took calls from the public in Hampstead where the shockwave had rattled windows. One caller from Harrow had been woken up when his self-assembled wardrobe - wrecked by the shockwave - had collapsed on to his bed on top of him.
But it was Herts control which took the brunt of the calls for Buncefield. And the other emergencies didn't stop. There were calls to two house fires in St Albans, a flat fire in Stevenage and an emergency landing at Elstree airport, nearly 300 other incidents during the days of the fire.
Officers - threatened with cuts in numbers from 45 to 40 across Hertfordshire - were also under strain as they put in long hours of uninterrupted duty in command and control.
One resident who lives close to Buncefield said she initially thought the explosion was a terrorist attack. ''The explosion shook the ground and we got up pulled on some clothes and walked into the street. We were just walking slowly towards the smoke, we could see it and the flames even in the dark. It was like watching a disaster movie on a giant screen with what I was watching seeming like it was from another world."
As dawn broke about 45 minutes after the initial explosion a clear blue sky was torn by a wide scar of grey smoke which darkened by the hour. The wide column of thick smoke spread south towards London, then west towards Heathrow later turning towards Essex, north east London and Kent.
By then the battle had started to stop the spread to other tanks as Herts crews set up a cooling curtain to protect other fuel tanks containing million of gallons of fuel. It was defensive firefighting. And at times desperate.
One local firefighter told us: "No one had seen a fireground like it, it was vast. We could get to within 10 | yards of the smoke as the radiated heat was not that•;] great. I had felt greater radiated heat at a barn fire."
Hertfordshire were not alone for long. The control was quickly seeking assistance from other brigades, particularly of foam stocks. Essex crews started to arrive at 07.30 with stocks of foam, firefighters and officers in support.
High volume pumps, hose-layers, lighting units , started pouring in. HVPs from London, Derbyshire,! Somerset, Staffordshire, Berkshire, North Yorkshire, Norfolk and GMC plus foam stocks from Kent, Hampshire, Humberside, Cheshire, Sussex, and Buckinghamshire started to arrive. Depending where they were from, they were crewed by wholetime or retained

Angus, one of the companies which manufactures foam, initially sent three tankers of foam, hose and crew, then a further 50,000 litres of foam concentrate then another 100,000 litres. Refineries and other oil depots offered supplies, Germany offered 100,000 litres, Stockholm said they had 70,000 tonnes of foam waiting to be airlifted.
Water pressure and availability at the site was also a major problem. Getting the concentrate to Herts was one thing, getting millions of gallons of steady water supply would be another.
It took time putting all the ingredients together. The water supply problem also appeared to have been resolved, although another remained: the depot was situated near essential natural underground water supplies. The risk of polluting that water was significant. At around 08.30 on the Monday, after 26 hours of defensive firefighting, there were enough stocks of foam on site - 170,000 litres - to start what was to be the first attack.
"It was difficult going and desperate at times" one Herts firefighter told us. "There'd be flare-ups all over the place but given the obvious potential it says a lot for our safety culture that there were four firefighters injured over the course of the fire, none of them serious enough to be reportable injuries."
But the first attack ran into problems and fire-fighters were withdrawn by 14.30 that afternoon. The official line - which resulted in a frenzy of media speculation - was that the fire service did not know what was in tank 7.
It may well have been a simple slip on the tight rope of the media circus that gathers at these events (most fire service contacts have told Firefighter the FRS are very unlikely not to have known what was in the tank given they had been on site for a day and a half). Senior officers with minds fixed on how to put out a major fire would hardly be expected to concentrate on every dot, comma and syllable of a press conference.
Putting the alleged mystery of what was in the tank aside, firefighters were withdrawn for their own safety. That gave time to re-assess and re-think.
Later on Monday the second wave attack started,! more accurately, separate attacks on four distinct parts of the site. It was this sustained attack which ultimately put the main part of the fire out although a break in the AFFF caused re-ignition on the
Wednesday morning. This was ultimately resolved by containment and letting it burnt itself out on the Wednesday afternoon.
Four days after one of the single biggest explosions ever experienced in the UK had started one of the biggest ever fires it was out, although carefully monitored. It started as a bang, ended with a whimper but some controversy still rages.