Incident: Industrial Building Fire in Pontardawe

At 2.57pm on Monday, December 16^th, Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service crews from Pontardawe, Amman Valley, Ammanford, Port Talbot, Morriston, Neath, Abercraf, Glynneath, Swansea West, Llandeilo, Pontarddulais, Carmarthen, Tumble and Llanelli Fire Stations, supported by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (SWFRS) crews, were called to an incident on Pontardawe Road in Pontardawe.

Crews responded to a fire within a single-storey industrial building, measuring approximately 60 metres by 40 metres.  The entire building was involved in fire.  Crews were initially faced with a rapidly developing fire involving storage units and multiple chemicals used in manufacturing.  Challenges in obtaining sufficient water to the site resulted in crews quickly escalating the incident to include ten pumping appliances, a turntable ladder appliance, an Incident Command Unit, five water bowsers, three of which came from SWFRS, a drone crew, a High Volume Pumping Unit, multiple officers for Incident Command support and hazardous materials intelligence and multi-agency partners from South Wales Police, the Welsh Ambulance Services Trust and Neath Port Talbot Highways Department.

Crews worked extremely hard in successfully preventing the fire in the rear storage units from impinging onto the main building structure which was greatly appreciated by the site owners at the scene.  The incident was eventually resolved just before 3am on Tuesday, December 17^th.

The incident did not involve any casualties.