Hampshire Fire & Rescue inundated with calls about fire seen at Fawley Refinery

8:34am Friday 11th January 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Jenny Makin, Crime Reporter

Flares burning at Fawley refinery Flares burning at Fawley refinery

FIREFIGHTERS were inundated with calls about Fawley's refinery last night, with many residents fearing it was on fire.

Hightown fire station were among those to respond on several occasions as the county's fire control room received the flurry of calls from people who could see large flames.

One of them came from a resident living on the opposite side of Southampton in Merryoak who could see the fire on the skyline.

But in fact, the flames were being caused by the burning of excess gas which firefighters say was sending off flares.

A spokesman for the refinery said today: "We would like to apologise to residents for any concerns caused.

"This was caused by routine burning of gas known as flaring which appeared to have reflected off cloud to give a particularly strong glow."

Comments(8)

Linesman says...
9:08am Fri 11 Jan 13

There was a similar situation in the early 50's when the 'Fawley Flame' was first lit, with fire brigades from all over the county being alerted.

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G0Rf says...
9:36am Fri 11 Jan 13

I could see the massive "Fawly Flame" going down Hamble Lane (near pilands estate) towards the train station on Wednesday at about 10am....looked much brighter than ever seen it before.....and I could see it straight through the clouds

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biggus2 says...
10:49am Fri 11 Jan 13

That's all very well but who is paying for that gas my bill is big enough without them burning it off for free,

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espanuel says...
12:31pm Fri 11 Jan 13

biggus2. Totaly different gas, as a plant could have had problem and went to flare which is a safety procedure. I do know as I worked there for 33 years. If the cloud base is low then it does make it look worse than what it is. Happy New Year.

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obloquy says...
2:22pm Fri 11 Jan 13

biggus2 wrote:
That's all very well but who is paying for that gas my bill is big enough without them burning it off for free,
That's right, biggus2, they're going to burn it all off, and add it to *your* gas bill. Because that's just the sort of thing they do, right?

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memush says...
7:34pm Fri 11 Jan 13

There certainly would have been a problem had the unit not been able to flare. The safety equipment therefore worked perfectly, as one would expect.

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Huffter says...
8:08pm Fri 11 Jan 13

"inundated" - how many calls?
"several occasions" - how many?

A few facts would help a report!

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Linesman says...
10:51pm Fri 11 Jan 13

Huffter wrote:
"inundated" - how many calls?
"several occasions" - how many?

A few facts would help a report!
Why? What diffence would it make? Do you really need to know?

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