Midrand fire still burning … Johannesburg

Posted on Sep 7, 2009 in Records Management News

Midrand fire still burning

2009-08-29 13:12

Johan­nes­burg — It could take up to three days to extin­guish a fire that broke out at a doc­u­ment ware­house in Midrand on Fri­day after­noon, Johan­nes­burg Emer­gency ser­vices said on Saturday.

“There’s noth­ing much we can do, save to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion. It is a very big build­ing, the roof has caved in and there are stacks and stacks of burn­ing paper… so when paper is burn­ing like this and there’s no threat to other build­ings or lives, we will let it burn out,” spokesper­son Percy Morokane said.

He said seven fire­fight­ers were mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion, hav­ing taken over from those who worked overnight. “Pre­dic­tions are that it’ll burn for three to four days,” he said.

The fire broke out at the com­pany Docu­File — which deals with doc­u­ment man­age­ment sys­tems and serves sev­eral clients in the bank­ing indus­try as well as gov­ern­ment — at 17:00 on Fri­day, Morokane said.

Over 200 employ­ees were evac­u­ated from the ware­house sit­u­ated at an office park at the cor­ners of Old Pre­to­ria and Le Roux roads. “Yes­ter­day [Fri­day], I could see the flames from Rand­burg while dri­ving to the scene but the fire is now under con­trol… we are just wait­ing for it to burn out,” Morokane said.

He said, how­ever, that should weather con­di­tions change, there could be a threat to nearby buildings.

“That’s why we have fire­fight­ers mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion… in case the fire goes out of con­trol but for­tu­nately, the build­ing is in a posi­tion that no other build­ings could be affected,” he said.

- SAPA

For more infor­ma­tion click here http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/811b6a6085164218a3ee3ff3d232405a/29–08-2009%2001–12/Midrand_fire_still_burning

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