Rain

14 °C

18 m/s

South

Response Team:
• 15 fire-engines and 50 fire-fighters from the city of Drama and the neighbouring cities
• Prefecture’s Emergency Committee (all available resources, including private contractors and the army, ex-army general occupied at the civil protection)

Equipment and Material Involved:
• The site had no fixed network of fire-fighting piping. Fire-fighting measures comprised portable fire-extinguishers and hoses, fed by two 15 m³ water tanks (fire quenching with water and foam).
• No open water sources were available in the area. Fire-engines could be supplied with water from the fire-fighting piping of the industrial estate nearby.
• Concrete was pumped from a distance on the pile of waste tires that was on fire, in order to diminish heat intensity.
• Use of cover up material (e.g., marble waste and soil transported from various sites within a distance of 5 km).

Damage to lifelines and access to the site:
•The service roadway that run from the entrance halfway to the centre of the site, could not be used by the fire-fighting
forces, as it was surrounded by blazing tires.
•Access to the fire was achieved mainly from the marble plant to the south and the fields to the north.

The winds kept the smoke away from the city of Drama, but serious complaints about breathing discomfort from inhabitants of nearby villages were reported. Even so, no evacuees were reported, and no one needed to be hospitalised. No other health problem or injury was reported among the fire-fighters and equipment operators, even though simple dust masks were used.

No adverse environmental effects were concluded, apart from an initial survey indicating soil samples contaminated with heavy metals. This was largely owned to the relatively fast and effective fire quenching campaign.

Despite the high cost of the questionable use of concrete, a major advantage of the dry extinction of the fire has been the absence of polluted extinguishing water and the related adverse consequences to the environment. The limited amount of water that was used on the first day was absorbed by the pile. No extinguishing water or oily residue reached the nearby creek, or leaked beyond the site. Instead, larger volumes of solid wastes were created. Leaching tests of the resulting solids fulfilled the Council Decision 2003/33/EC criteria for landfill deposition of inert wastes.

0.29 M USD

The economic consequences were significant and attributed to:
• the fire extinction costs, raised considerably by the use of concrete
• the investigative and monitoring costs for taking and analysing samples of air, soil, waters, agricultural and livestock products
• the preventive detention and destruction of dairy products and compensation sums awarded to farmers
• the fodder supplied to farmers due to the prohibition of grazing imposed

Overall, it is estimated that the economic consequences of the fire amount to 400.000 €. This sum does not contain the clean-up cost of the site. Although procedures for environmental liability were initiated, in line with EC Directive 2004/35, the fire extinction costs were eventually take up by the Prefecture of Drama, which considered the event as fire emergency, while the compensation costs to farmers were incurred by the Regional Authority.

The site activity was suspended - the competent authority withdrew the authorisation and permits of the open waste tire storage facility and the nearby recycling plant, both owned by the same entrepreneur. The land rental contracts were interrupted.

The maximum efforts for fastest possible extinction of the fire were compensated by minimum environmental
damage. Owing to the full-scale fire-extinction campaign, concentrations of harmful pollutants released by the
combustion of the tires did not exceed safety limits.

The tire storage fire in Drama was “moderate in size”, compared to other incidents of its kind. This made the
entombment of the blazing pile feasible, while in the same time unwanted side effects from the use of quenching water
were averted.

Analysis, documentation and dissemination of facts, conclusions and best practices are needed for local and central
authorities, in order to exploit the experience gained.

Environmental liability directive (EC/2004/35), which was incorporated in the Greek legislation in 2009, granted
opportunities and powers to authorities, which need to be elaborated on and better exploited. Procedures need to be
developed, in order to allocate cost of preventive and remedial measures to the liable operator promptly and impose
necessary actions with no delay caused by legal disputes.

The use of concrete was a questionable and expensive measure but it offered the following benefits:
1. it formed a solid crust over the blazing pile, which cracked quickly, but it was enough to enable the bulldozers to approach.
2. it proved beneficial by enabling the fast entombment of the fire.
3. It enabled the dry extinction of the fire in the absence of polluted extinguishing water and the related adverse consequences to the environment.

Regular briefings to the public and consultation meetings with the college of experts open to civilians contributed
significantly to alleviate increased worries and protests by the public.

The comprehensive and extended monitoring programme and the prompt disclosure of all results restored
public confidence and the sense of safety.