Firefighters respond to city crane fire
Published: 27th November 2012
Multiple Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) fire crews and urban search and rescue specialists are working to stabilise a 65m-high crane in inner-city Sydney following a fire in its engine and cabin this morning.
Fire crews were called to a crane fire at a building site in Broadway, Chippendale about 9.40am. A crane driver and a second worker in the cabin evacuated soon after firefighters arrived as the fire spread from the engine to engulf the cabin. The crane was carrying 1000 litres of diesel.
Fire crews who had started to attack the fire were quickly withdrawn when the fire started to destabilise the crane’s structural integrity and its fly boom collapsed. No one was injured
Firefighters evacuated 100 workers from the building site and another 100 people from surrounding businesses and homes. A 1km exclusion zone was set up by emergency services.
FRNSW Deputy Commissioner Jim Smith said FRNSW’s urban search and rescue specialists, who had been deployed to assist in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake and Japan earthquake and tsunami, were liaising with police and local structural engineers on how best to stabilise the area.
“Broadway has been closed, and will remain closed, while operations continue. Meantime, our firefighters, who quickly arrived on the scene, are continuing to monitor the situation from our ladder platform firefighting appliances, or cherry pickers,” he said.
“This comes as western Sydney fire crews responded to a unit fire in a complex on the Great Western Highway at St Marys where 20 people were evacuated.”