Fire in Hamburg waste incineration plant only extinguished after 36 hours

After almost 36 hours of use by the Hamburg fire brigade, the fire in the chimney of a waste incineration plant in the Billbrook district was extinguished. The emergency services were withdrawn on Saturday afternoon, said a fire brigade spokesman.

Two follow-up checks in the afternoon and in the evening did not show any significant temperature increases. By Saturday morning, around 30 firefighters were still on site and had fought embers in the 70-meter high chimney of the plant with a foam-water mixture.

On the night of Friday, employees of the plant had reported the fire on the premises. A caller had reported meter-high flames. The fire brigade had already extinguished most of the fire early Friday morning. The emergency services fought the flames with the help of a turntable ladder and a telescopic mast vehicle.

After an expert had confirmed the stability of the chimney, they also used a special device that can spray water through walls at high pressure. Because of the heavy smoke, residents were asked to keep windows and doors closed and to turn off ventilation.

During the operation, an employee of the plant and a firefighter suffered minor injuries. According to the police, the investigation into the cause of the fire should only begin after the extinguishing work has been completed.

The waste recycling plant Borsigstraße (MVB), as the facility is officially called, has been operated by the Hamburg city cleaning department since 1994.

At the end of last year, the company, in cooperation with Wärme HamburgGmbH and the environmental authority, started a 55 million euro project to make better use of waste heat. The plan is to gain 350,000 additional megawatt hours per year for heating homes without increasing the amount of fuel.