Titanium blaze at Rotherham factory

FIRE crews have successfully dealt with a fire involving two tonnes of titanium at a metallurgical engineering firm in Rotherham.

Around 30 firefighters were called to the London and Scandinavia premises on Fullerton Road, Ickles, at 4.30pm yesterday after reports of an explosion.

On arrival they found the titanium castings and drums of titanium powder, which had been used in the firm's engineering processes, alight in an outdoor yard.

They were stored within an eight feet high, 20-foot long pen constructed from railway sleepers, some of which were also alight.

Around 15 workers were evacuated from the surrounding production area, although the remainder of the factory was unaffected and continued to work  and the safety cordon did not affect the public.

Fire crews used on-site machinery, including fork lift trucks, to move the titanium not involved in fire and sleepers away from the danger zone.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus then covered the potentially explosive titanium in sand to form a crust to extinguish the fire.

The incident was scaled down at 8pm with one fire appliance remaining.

One man in his 30s was injured in the initial explosion and was taken to hospital suffering from burns.