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"All Fired Up - Vehicle Windows' Recovery from Fire"

Damage to the Cladding The "river" side of the unit above one of the airbricks which was taken out to start the fire.

View of the top end of the unit

Collapsed Racking This photo shows where the racking has collapsed and goods in stock have fallen onto the floor.

Melted Door Foam This is on the far side of the unit from the fire. The blue melted mess on the right is the foam used inside our doors. The whole area is covered in thick, black, sticky, poisonous fall-out.

Start Point of Fire The fire took hold in the Works Manager's office (Mick Cree). The white circle shows the location of one of the airbricks which was removed. Petrol was poured in and set alight which in turn set fire to the paperwork in his office. The heat travelled up and out (as can be seen from the outside in picture 1). Unfortunately much of our packaging material was stored above Mick's office and this immediately took light. The heat went over 1000 degrees centigrade, which travelled through the unit and destroyed most plastic components in the factory. The rest of the destruction was caused by the thick, black smoke which was created by our packing foam burning, and the water and foam from the 15 fire appliances which attended!

Cleaning Up We set up a cleaning station outside the unit to try to save as much stock and equipment as possible. You can see the smoke which leaked out at the top of the cladding. Our neighbouring unit (with the white sign) is to the right hand side.

Mick Cree in his attractive disposible boiler suit! Mick led the team of lads who worked so hard trying to salvage what they could.

"We Shall Not Be Moved..." ...Until Tonight! Lynn & Caspar in VWC's temporary HQ - the horsebox!

Clock Card Machine The hours just melt away...

Lynn Feeling Fed Up Boxes, boxes all around, and not a drop of coffee to drink.

Feeling Better! Yvonne and Lynn getting back to some semblance of normality (whatever that is)

Hand Building Doors To try to get a couple of customers out of trouble, Gary Peel (shift manager) does his best to hand-build a couple of doors before our machinery had arrived.

Arrival Of Equipment! Hurray - Mick oversees the delivery of our sparkly new double mitre saw!