BAE Systems has provided an update following the fire at its Barrow-in-Furness submarine manufacturing facility, which broke out early on Wednesday morning.
Emergency services were called to respond to the incident in the Devonshire Dock Hall, the site’s main submarine construction building. By afternoon, the blaze was largely controlled, and the fire response was scaled down.
A spokesperson for BAE Systems issued the following statement:
“Emergency services have stood down their major incident response to the fire which broke out in the early hours of Wednesday 30 October at our submarines facility in Barrow in Furness.
We’d like to thank all the agencies involved for their assistance in dealing with the fire at the Devonshire Dock Hall and the local community for their ongoing support and patience as the incident was managed throughout the day. All personnel were safely evacuated and our employees who were treated in hospital have been released.”
Whilst the affected area is accessible for essential personnel only, the remainder of the site is operational. Until a full investigation has been completed, it would be inappropriate to comment further about the cause or potential impact of the incident.”
The fire had prompted a major response, including the evacuation of all personnel from the affected building. Two individuals were taken to hospital as a precaution for smoke inhalation and were subsequently discharged. Cumbria Police assured the public that there was no nuclear risk associated with the incident, and an investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed it is working closely with BAE and local emergency responders as they assess the incident’s impact and establish next steps for resuming normal operations.
thanks for covering this and updating us since story was drowned by budget 2024
hopefully damage is limited and won’t cause too many delays.
i think a lot of people fail to realize the importance of this shipyard especially when there is a war in Europe with N. Korean troops, Iran causing all sorts of problems across the middle east via proxies as well as looking to develop nukes, and China becoming ever more assertive around the South China seas.
at the end of the day, regardless of monetary costs, deterrance is far cheaper than a bloody war.
Agreed. Defence spending at the height of WW2 was 52% of GDP..! Makes even 5% defence spending look like a good deal if we effectively deter aggression.
Cheers CR
Shows juts how vulnerable we are with a single yard. It’s even worse given that it’s all enclosed and could in theory burn down.
Doesn’t bare thinking about that scenario.
Silly comment. Obviously haven’t been in the shipyard.
Good news indeed.
HMG needs to get this sorted pronto. Need an increase in threat level and security across a wide range of sites civilian & military given potential sabotage scenario’s.
Needs trained people to do that.
Lots of them…
Uk always had diffuse defence manufacturing which depended on only the locals knowing – trouble is in digital world they all have a website and address so too easy to work out what and where.
If this does turn out to be sabotage the response should be the immediate removal of restrictions on the use of Storm Shadow.
Unfortunately, as far as I understand it, something in StormShadow is subject to ITAR, so it’s not up to us. The US still get their say, and I don’t see any change in their policy just because we had a little fire.
Then we need to look for an alternate component for “export” versions.
From what I’ve heard, that’s exactly what France did with theirs- and what we should be doing if the reports are accurate about us ramping up production again.
It’s also why all of our latest complex weapons (ASRAAM, Meteor, Brimstone, LMM, Sea Venom, etc.) are all ITAR-free.
Does ITAR apply to Mk.41 units?
I’d be amazed if it didn’t- it’s a critical piece of military tech designed by the US.
It may be a reason to keep a foot in with Sylver, but ultimately I can’t imagine we’d be selling combat ships to anyone who the US would reject for Mk41.
The attack on our hospital should have elicited that response.
Agreed.
Which Hospital ?
King’s college, guys and St Thomas, in June this year
What on Earth has that got to do with the BAE Barrow Fire ?.
Bobs comment was about russian sabotage. These hospitals were attacked by russia. Hence my opinion is, that should have been reason enough to remove the restrictions on storm shadow.
Qilin is a criminal Cyber Crime Group that just so happens to use the Russian Language – that is very different from being a State Sponsored Cyber Attack – starting WW3 over something a Criminal Gang did might not be the best of ideas.😼
So you think allowing Ukraine to use storm shadow against russian territory will start ww3? Who’s side are you on May I ask?
Nothing new in this statement, Surely they can at least tell if there’s been any obvious damage to the sub”s under construction or not at this point.
It remains to be seen if this was an accident or something malicious. If the latter was it a disgruntled employee or one of Putin’s minions….
It just shows how vulnerable we are with all our submarine building in one place.
As for defence spending, the £2.9bn ‘increase’ is just a fraction of the extra for the already hugely expensive NHS. All this at the most dangerous time since WW2
Probs a crane fire, how high those buildings are and the space above the submarines, combined with the pics outside showing fire damage to the roof.. that’d be my guess.
Right now no one knows what the underlying cause of this fire was, and there has been a lot of speculation.
All I will say is that fire is a risk in just about any structure and when it involves machinery, lighting, heating, storage, air conditioning it happens !
I’ve carried out accident investigations and you have an immediate cause and usually an underlying one. The latter is 90% caused by people who either do something stupid, make an innocent mistake or just ignore procedures.
Yes if could be something untoward or as simple as someone leaving a Phone or Vape plugged in to recharge (bloody dangerous things). The latter shouldn’t happen but you would be amazed by the lengths people go to just to recharge their personal items.
There are questions I would be asking and that would about the Fire detection system, response times and is the local Fire Service in Barrow sufficiently resourced to deal with a major incident at BAe ?
The site is massive, the DDH is just simply huge and it’s 100% vital to the security of the UK and NATO.
Anyone who has ever driven to Barrow realises just how poorly it’s served by major roads so it’s not that easy to draft help in.
Look at a Map and contrast that with RR here in Derby, it’s located beside an A class dual carriageway, and in either direction it’s 10 minutes drive of 2 junctions of the M1. Which means that it has the combined Fire & Rescue services of Derby(s), F&R Service plus those of Notts, Leics and EMA all within very easy reach.
Imagine trying to get help in Barrow from Manchester, Liverpool or even Blackpool or Lancaster in the Summer !
When I worked at a Chemicals plant, they had their own fire and rescue specialists and equipment on site. They collaborated with the County fire service and were responsible for the adjacent motorway since many of the HGVs carrying dangerous chemicals on that road were going there anyway.
I’d expect BAE to run their own fire and rescue on site given the special materials that they use. County fire and rescue aren’t going to know about specialist materials.
Chatham dockyard had a fire station just yards from where the victory dock was, but I believe local fire stations responded first, many years ago. 3D
They do have their own fire service on site.
Sabotage or what?
The North East shipyard I was based in back in the mid-1980s had a fire, in the area operated by the company I worked for. Quite a lot of damage but luckily nothing too serious or long term as the building affected had a sprinkler system installed.
All down to a colleague attempting to dry out his damp overalls on one of the storage heaters…
No naked flame, no electrical fault, no chemical spill, just the slow build up of heat into damp cloth…so fires in industrial sites can be very easily started.
Think Russia has something to do with this fire , also more could happen so extra security around nuclear sites navy ship building yards military infrastructure bases etc .
They are getting better are the Russian s
Just wanna say its makes a change for any news agency to not comment on something because they dont have the info. Thats a real pet peeve of mine and its noticed 😉
Sabotage?
Anyone asking how it started???