An hour after the plant producing plastic wrapping material for juice boxes was shut down at the end of an 8-hour shift, the security guard noticed thick black smoke coming from the eves of the building. He ran back towards the source of the smoke and noticed the back of the building on fire. He immediately contacted civil defence authorities and proceeded with workers from a nearby factory to try attacking the fire using the hose reels on the outside of the building. Civil defence crews arrived on site and entered the property from the front. They did not see any flames in the front side of the building. They rushed towards the back and discovered flames coming out of the section where a 5-colour printing press was used to label plastic shrink-wrapping material.
Civil defence crews attacked the fire from the back of the building and were able to control the fire after several hours, but not before the roof of the building had partially collapsed.
CEERISK experts were instructed to investigate the cause and origin of the fire. A scene investigation was launched, and pieces of evidence were identified, secured and removed from the site for further forensic examination at a later date. CEERISK experts are coordinating with the owners of the factory, the civil defence investigators and the Ministry of Interior criminal investigators to facilitate access to the suspected area of origin to closely examine machines that were in the area.
