Fire crews called to Bromborough cereal plant after cornflakes burn in industrial toasting oven

Oct 15 2008 by Kevin Core, Birkenhead News

FIRE crews raced to a major cereal plant this morning after corn flakes were burnt in an oven blaze.

At 2.30am Bromborough firefighters were called to the nearby Cereal Partners site in Bromborough Pool, which produces corn flakes and Cheerios for Nestlé.

They were confronted with a 10m high, 20m wide industrial toasting oven containing a conveyor belt full of the cereal.

Watch manager Ian Hardman said: “Staff in the factory had realised something was wrong and called us out, the cereal inside the oven had all been burnt.

“It’s a major piece of equipment and the personnel inside were great, they had done a good job with their extinguishers. They met us at the gate and took us inside to show us the problem.

“They worked with us to tell us more about the machine oven and we looked at how to contain the fire.

“It was clear that the heat inside had become so severe it had burnt the insulation from parts of the oven.

“The fire was contained and we were able to leave the scene at about 5.30am.”

Fire crews said that their discussions with workers at Cereal Partners suggested the oven was not damaged beyond repair.

Staff suggested that the oven could be out of action for a week or so while engineers assessed it - the impact on production at the site is not yet known.