When not attending incidents or drill nights as a retained firefighter at Hornby, Matthew Midgley works on a farm. For his actions in dealing with an incident that occurred on the farm where he was working, he has been awarded the Chief Fire Officer’s Commendation in a ceremony that took place at Hornby Fire Station on Monday 26th July.
On 3rd February this year Firefighter Matthew Midgley was working at Bridge End Farm, Hornby, in the vicinity of a large slurry tank located at the rear of the farm, fifteen metres away from the adjacent River Wenning. While setting about the task to hand, Matthew spotted a small leak of slurry emerging from a rust patch on the tank.
He decided to attempt to patch the leak with a proprietary leak stopper but the leak could not be patched and was getting worse, so he notified Fire Control and his colleagues were mobilised to assist.
The tank contained somewhere in the region of 200,000 gallons of slurry and it posed a significant environmental threat if even a fraction of that amount were to leak into the river. Prior to the arrival of the fire engine and crew, Matthew had judged that the slurry flow would most probably enter a surface water drain grid nearby, which discharged into the river. He therefore constructed a makeshift dam of loose soil over the grid to block the flow of slurry into the drain.
Matthew’s next step was to place a hose from the slurry tank’s built-in pump over the rupture in an attempt to contain the leak and pump the slurry away, which worked for a time but the pump developed a problem and stopped working. He then phoned a local contractor to ask for help to pump out the slurry tank.
On arrival of the Hornby fire engine and remainder of Matthew’s crew, firefighters inflated a fire hose with compressed air and manoeuvred the hose into position on the ground to create a barrier and divert the slurry leak away from the drain and towards an underground tank.
The multi-agency arrangements for dealing with an incident posing a threat to the environment, Operation Merlin, were implemented and the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s Hazardous Materials Unit together with an additional fire engine and crew were mobilised and the Environment Agency was notified. The soil dam built by Matthew over the drain was removed bit by bit and a more effective barrier constructed in its place from proprietary leak stopper. The contractors that Matthew had called had by now set up their pump and were pumping the slurry onto fields well away from the river.
Chief Fire Officer Peter Holland concludes,
“Thanks to the quick thinking and resourcefulness of Firefighter Midgley and the magnificent contribution of his Hornby firefighter colleagues and the additional LFRS teams responding to the incident, the pollution threat posed by the slurry leak was averted.”
“In offering my congratulations and thanks to Firefighter Midgley for his actions that day, I take the opportunity to express my appreciation too for the selfless dedication and ability of those other men and women who deliver the vital community service that our retained firefighters provide.”