A serious fire at Didcot B power station in Oxfordshire has been brought under control by firefighters.
The fire broke out on the evening of October 19 in one of the two cooling tower modules at the plant.
According to plant owners RWE Generation, the module supplies cooling water to one of the two generating units at Didcot B and half of the station’s output has been affected.
The fire spread to three other cooling towers due to high winds but Oxfordshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service, called to the station at 2010, brought the blaze under control at 2200 and extinguished it at around midnight.
Firefighters are now dampening-down the affected area and are expected to remain on site for the next 24 hours. No injuries were recorded to either the emergency services or RWE npower personnel who operate the plant.
Simon Furlong, Oxfordshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service’s Assistant Chief Fire Officer, said: ‘This was a serious fire which began in one of Didcot B power station’s cooling towers and spread to three other cooling towers.
‘Oxfordshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service responded to the scene and worked well to extinguish the fire. We work closely in partnership with the power station to ensure we have plans in place should an incident of this nature actually happen.
‘The fire itself was extinguished quickly – there are no reports of injuries, which of course is pleasing.
‘As at 10am on Monday we have three fire engines on-scene still, dampening down hot spots and we will continue to have a presence there for at least the next 24 hours.
‘An investigation has begun in conjunction with other agencies regarding the cause of the fire – I expect that it will take some time to determine the reasons behind what actually happened.’
Didcot B is a gas-fired power station that has been operating since 1997. The station is powered by natural gas and uses combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) to produce electricity up to 1,360MW of power.
The affected part of the site will remain non-operational until an investigation and repairs can take place. RWE said it is too early to give any definitive estimate of how long this will be.
We are told that this combined cycle gas fired power station went on stream in 1997, quite a long time after I immigrated to South Africa in 1982.
Now, a cooling tower caught fire, and others nearby had to be doused with water to prevent them also from catching fire.
Please, what was in the minds of the engineers who designed these cooling towers to make them from wood? What was the matter with the more normal concrete ones? I would have thought that wooden cooling towers would have gone out of fashion before WWII.
How can ignition occur in an online cooling tower which is normally soaking wet? The intensity of the fire may indicate plastic internal packing. But the water???
Cooling towers are not normally flammable items in power stations. Is the reporting just inaccurate or had Didcot some unusual cooling towers?
Will be of great interest to know more about the extent of the damage and the cause. E.g. were the units gas only so that the fire was in the gas supply or compression system??
Why were these (apparently)made of wood – they look like a flimsy garden shed? Unlike the ones next to them, some just blown up/demolished, clever (hyperbolic) thin concrete.
I wonder if the remainder of those concrete ones are too far way to use instead of the burned ones..
An emergency services spokesman said on R4 that the first call they received alerting then to the fire came from a member of the public. How is it that there can be a serious fire and the power station staff are unaware of it?
Re- Peter Holden, point taken, but there was a thoughtful item on West Mids TV news recently about fire services requesting full details inc. location/co-ords direct off “Joe Public’s” I-Phone for future emergencies, seems a good idea, cut out the human story telling ..