Authorities have warned western Melbourne residents exposed to a massive industrial blaze in Derrimut this week to monitor for headaches after the toxic fire contaminated nearby waterways and may take weeks to clean up.
The health of firefighters who battled Melbourne’s largest fire in six years is now being monitored.
“We’ve had a couple of firefighters present to hospital for observations and tests,” said Josh Fischer, Fire Rescue Victoria’s deputy commissioner for community safety on Friday.
“Those firefighters have since been released, and they’re in care with our medical professionals at FRV for that ongoing monitoring.”
On Thursday, The Age revealed a bitter dispute had erupted in the midst of Wednesday’s fire at the chemical manufacturing plant, operated by ACB Group, after Melbourne Water initially delayed flushing a large toxic water slurry, created by the blaze and the efforts to douse it with chemical-laced firefighting foam, into drains and Cherry Creek.
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An official from the water authority – who was later overruled – worried about environmental damage and clean-up costs. But that sparked anger among emergency responders on the scene, who worried about the health risks to themselves as huge toxic pools of water formed.
“Obviously, there’s a number of things that can occur as people are exposed to chemicals,” Fischer said on Friday.
“We’ll be monitoring for those, [including] obviously, headaches. People might have elevated heart rates, particularly with this type of strenuous activity: long duration, wearing breathing apparatus, hot environments, stressful conditions.
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