Chemical response after blaze at residential garage in Birmingham leads to sodium explosion

The solution

Incident Commander Dave Boucher at the scene said: “We’ve had to get a specialist contractor in and keep a fire presence there. The road will be closed for the moment. They have removed the chemicals and are sweeping and cleaning and ensuring it is safe.”

Wearing the appropriate PPE and RPE we removed the tarpaulin to identify the substance and confirmed it was in fact sodium in multiple containers.

To be stored safely all the canisters should have been hermetically sealed. As the sodium reacted with water it created sodium hydroxide which began eating through the canisters causing multiple reactions.

We used a thermal imaging camera to monitor each drum and ensured they were liquid tight so they could be safely removed from the garage. We noticed that the temperature changed from 30 degrees to over 230 just by moving the sodium slightly, so it had to be handled with extreme care.

Where there were non-compliant drums we mobilised over drums and lose canisters were collected and placed in an oil filled drum to mitigate any further reactions.

We brought a curtain sided vehicle to the site in Birmingham and loaded the sodium to be transported to our Rainham waste transfer depot to be held and await next steps. Our in-house chemists monitored the load over weekend to ensure no further reactions.