One firefighter was killed and seven more injured when a blaze erupted at Icepak's Tamahere coolstores. Photo / Doug Sherring

One firefighter was killed and seven more injured when a blaze erupted at Icepak's Tamahere coolstores. Photo / Doug Sherring

The devastating fire at Icepak's Tamahere coolstores has exposed shortcomings in the system of certifying the safety of plants which use dangerous gases.

Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) was unaware the Tamahere plant had twice the amount of highly flammable propane LPG on site without having had the required safety inspections.

The firemen who attended an emergency alarm on Saturday April 5 did not know propane was on site. Nor did the Waikato District Council.

Firefighter Derek Lovell was killed and seven colleagues injured when the plant suddenly erupted into a fireball.

Who knew what and when are part of the various investigations under way, as is whether Icepak fulfilled its obligations when it changed from non-flammable freon gas as its refrigerant to propane.

Also under scrutiny is New Zealand's regime for ensuring the safe use of flammable gases.

Erma administers the Hazardous Goods and New Organisms (HSNO) Act 1996 which took over from the Dangerous Goods Act.

Under the old legislation, territorial authorities had a dangerous goods inspector tasked with inspecting such sites. Ensuring sites are compliant now falls to Erma but there are doubts about whether it is sufficiently proactive. There is also criticism that the gas regime with its various laws and regulations has become too convoluted, causing some sites to fall between the cracks.

The Fire Service yesterday admitted it still does not know what coolstores throughout the country are using flammable gases such as propane as a refrigerant.

The Tamahere disaster prompted the Fire Service and Department of Labour to begin a survey of such plants.

The Fire Service often have risk assessment plans for buildings assessed as high risk. The plans have five categories, from risk to people to whether a building has a high fire loading, rated on the presence of hazardous substances such as gas and chemicals and the availability of water.

Each category is rated 1 (low risk) to 5 (high) giving the premises a potential maximum risk rating of 25.

After the Icepak disaster, Waikato fire chief Roy Breeze estimated the Icepak Tamahere plant rating wouldn't be less than 20.

Fire Service media manager Scott Sargentina said whether a risk assessment plan existed for the coolstore was part of the operational review - an investigation was under way and no comment would be made on related matters until those were complete.