KEY POINTS:
The head of the Firefighters Union says firefighters would have approached the site of the fatal Hamilton coolstore explosion very differently if they thought it was full of flammable propane gas.
The blast and fire at the Icepak coolstore in suburban Tamahere on April 5 killed senior station
officer Derek Lovell and injured seven other firemen.
Fire investigators trying to pinpoint the cause of the Tamahere coolstore explosion are checking whether a highly flammable gas was being used at the site.
The Fire Service believes the explosion was caused by propane gas, but had yet to determine if it was being used as a refrigerant in the plant or came from another source, such as an LPG cylinder, Radio New Zealand reported.
Icepak, was granted resource consent to build two coolstores in 2002 on condition that the less volatile gas, freon, was used as a refrigerant.
Firefighters' Union national secretary Derek Best said the size and extent of the explosion meant it could not have come from a gas cylinder on a forklift truck, as had been suggested.
"It was a massive explosion and the rumours have been around for some time that the unknown propellant or refrigerant being used in the coolstore was not what was normally expected," he told RNZ.
"It had as I understand it some fairly obscure brand name that really no one knew what it was about," he said.
"And now, although obviously the identification is not absolutely complete we're talking about propane, at the very least a highly flammable gas."
It was a legal requirement that any hazardous substances were identified at a site and it was being looked at whether such identification existed.
"My understanding is certainly the firefighters that attended that incident were utterly unaware that there was even the vaguest possibility that the refrigerant in the coolstore would be something as explosive as propane."
Mr Best was concerned that if the gas was not known about in this case then there could be other sites in a similar position.
"That's why there is this situation of identification and people have to be honest, and if people aren't being honest then the authorities need to bring those people to account," he said.
The Herald on Sunday reported that fire investigators had examined Waikato District Council files to see if Icepak had permission to use LPG instead of a less volatile gas.
Icepak director Wayne Grattan said the council did not need to be told of any change and was confident the coolstore complied with regulations.
He said the plant's safety systems were modern and fully compliant with standards. He was reluctant to comment further while the investigation was ongoing.
A number of investigations are under way into the cause of the explosion.
A team of fire experts and investigators was named on April 14 by the New Zealand Fire Service.
Mike Hall, national commander and chief executive of the New Zealand Fire Service (NZFS), said the team would conduct a "comprehensive, independent investigation" and would report within 90 days.
The head of the team, Fire Service director of risk management Paula Beever, declined to comment today on the suggestions that propane gas was being used at the coolstore.
"The inquiry team won't make statements until we complete our report," she told NZPA.
- NZPA
