Incident review: Up in smoke

A fire and explosion in a clandestine fireworks storage site in Paramos, Spain, killed two and injured 35 people in May 2018. George Potter reports.

A few minutes before 17:00 on Wednesday 23 May 2018, a violent explosion ripped through a clandestine fireworks storage site in the village of Paramos, a suburb of Tui in the Galicia region of Spain. Two people were killed and the explosion injured 35 others and caused damage to dozens of surrounding buildings, mostly family homes.

The plant was located in a large shed adjacent to a home and had been operating for several years, despite being ordered to close a number of years ago by the former mayor. According to reliable sources, the site owner, who also owns a major fireworks factory not far away, had received judicial orders to close the facility and had even been fined. Neither the storage site nor the factory had adequate fire protection measures in place.

Tui is a small municipality with some 16,000 inhabitants located on the Miño river, the natural border that separates Spain and Portugal. It is 33km south of Vigo, the major city of the Pontevedra province. Tui itself does not have a fire brigade and must depend on surrounding municipalities for emergency response.

The explosion completely demolished the plant and several buildings in a radius of approximately 800 metres. It also damaged structures several kilometres away, causing damage

mainly to windows. Shockwaves were reported as far away as Vigo, and the smoke cloud was clearly visible for around 10km. More than 30 people lost their homes.

The emergency response services in the Galicia region are unique. The region is composed of four provinces – Coruña, Lugo, Pontevedra, and Ourense – each of which has its own provincial capital, while yet another city, Santiago de Compostela, is the regional capital. There are seven municipalities that have full-time public service fire brigades while the remainder of the region is protected by 23 stations managed by three private companies and staffed by some 460 firefighters. These firefighters are recognised as being under-equipped, under-trained, and over-worked. The distribution of personnel is three per station with six 24-hour shifts.

The closest fire station to Tui is approximately 5km away, in Valencia de Minho in Portugal. The nearest station on the Spanish side is Porriño, around 15km north of Tui. Both responded to the explosion along with vehicles and personnel from Baixo Miño, Morrazo, and Ribadumia, which are 10km, 40km, and 60km distant respectively. Each of these sent one pump or a tanker with two or three men on board, and while the Portuguese were the first on the scene, Spanish firefighters took from 20 minutes to more than one hour to arrive. The Vigo municipal brigade was not summoned until late into the incident and dispatched two pumps with eight firefighters and an officer.

According to reliable sources, the private brigades cannot request professional assistance to incidents until the situation surpasses their capacities to manage. This was the case in the railway incident in 2013 as well as several wildland fires. During the wildland fires in 2017, assistance from the Spanish Military Emergency Units, Portuguese fire services, and several other Spanish fire services was needed to assist the over-extended local services.

After more than 17 years, this concept is undergoing extensive viability studies, although because of the particular political situation in the region it appears doubtful that any major improvements will be made.

The Paramos fireworks explosion caused extensive structural damage. Fire affected several of the surrounding structures, although the majority of the structural damage was caused by the explosion itself.

A few hours after the explosion, the owner of the facility was arrested and charged with homicide, personal injury, and property damage. Reports state that he may have had as much as 1,500kg of explosive materials stored at the site. Spanish police explosives teams spent several hours combing through the debris in search of residues. Several days after the explosion, more than 1,500kg of highlycombustible pyrotechnic material belonging to the owner were found in other sites close to yet more homes in the immediate area.

This incident was not unlike the explosion in a pyrotechnic plant near Zaragoza in northeast Spain in 2015. That explosion claimed six lives but the damage to surrounding

madrid office collapse structures was much reduced. The Zaragoza site was located several kilometres from residential areas, it was a purpose-built site withunderground and specific bunker-like storage facilities, and wasequipped with various fire protection measures. The Zaragoza municipalfire brigade was able to respond with several vehicles and adequatepersonnel even though there were several explosions causing severalfires.

In June 2018, an eight-storey office and residential building in Madrid that was undergoing a complete renovation collapsed, causing several injuries and two deaths. Dozens of firefighters from the Madrid municipal fire brigade, including urban rescue specialists, worked around the clock for more than three days removing debris in search of the two victims. The incident is still under investigation, but the cause of the collapse has been attributed to an accumulation of building materials on the roof and the weakening of the building's structure following the removal of, or variations to, structural elements that formed part of the renovation project to create new luxury flats.

A firefighter sprays water inside a destroyed house after the explosion. © Shutterstock Miguel Vidal

Spain has a global reputation for fireworks production and several Spanish companies are recognised worldwide for excellence. However, while these firms manufacture and assemble their materials under very strict controls, there are many more ‘extra-legal’ producers who do not comply with the obligatory national safety codes for fireworks. It remains to be seen whether the Tui disaster will result in closer scrutiny of this sector.

Above: Firefighters respond to an explosion in a fireworks storagefacility in Paramos, which destroyed several buildings. © Shutterstock,Miguel Vidal

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