Cowbury Green and the Chemstar Explosion

Fire September 6th 1981. One Sunday night just before midnight, 11.45 pm, a pump to the cooling system of a machine that was used to process chemicals failed, the machine overheated and a chemical reaction started. The explosion was caused by the ignition of hexane vapour, discharged after a loss of cooling water to the condenser of the pot still in which 6000 litres of contaminated hexane were being distilled. The fire which followed spread rapidly to the remainder of the site where drums of solvent were stored. Fumes caught a pilot light and within minutes flames were through the roof of Chemstar. The chemical firm exploded, triggering off a series of blasts, that shook buildings, blew in windows; buildings in the centre of Stalybridge were rocked. A two storey building on the site was demolished and the house nearest the site suffered radiant heat damage and a 200 litre drum landed on the roof, another four drums landed outside the site boundary.
	Workers At The Factory One man working at the time was badly hurt. The man, a process worker, had been seen running from the inferno with his clothes ablaze, he received serious burns to his body. He was taken to Tameside General hospital and doctors expected it to take 6 months to recover from the burns.
A missing lorry driver was trapped inside; an attempt to save him was met by flames like a blow torch shooting out. The body was found the next day at 12.30 pm by firemen searching the ruins. They had been the only people on the site at the time. A second lorry driver, delivering chemicals to the factory, was overcome by fumes had to be dragged from the cab of his lorry by a local resident who then drove the cab off the site.

	Evacuation The blast had awoken hundreds of people; some residents on Carrbrook Close and Huddersfield Road were thrown from their beds. More than 200 residents of the village had to be evacuated to local schools and church halls. At 2.30 am on Monday 7th September more than 1,000 residents in the Carrbrook area were told to leave their homes as the explosions continued, some stayed in St Raphael’s Catholic Church centre and some in Millbrook Community Centre.
Eye Witness Accounts It was an amazing sight, an eyewitness described fireballs leaping 200 feet in the air. 40-gallon drums of chemical fluid were blasted hundreds of feet into the air, scattering debris over a large area. Oil drums full of chemicals were exploding, bursting like spectacular fireballs and dropping like bombs, one landing on the roof of a house half a mile away. The hillside was illuminated as they ignited and incredible fierce flames leapt into the air. 150,000 gallons of solvent fuelled the inferno. Fortunately it was dead calm, if there had been a wind there would have been a terrible tragedy.
	Firemen More than 200 Firemen battled for over 13 hours to bring the blaze under control and 37 fire appliances were in attendance. Firemen emptied Carrbrook reservoir of water and used it to dampen the blaze, which at times resembled a volcanic eruption. It took 2 days and 100,000 gallons of foam to bring the blaze, under control.
Two firemen were injured in the blaze, but not seriously. The lid of an exploding drum hit the back of a fireman’s leg, however he was able to stay on duty. The firemen fought the blaze without breathing apparatus, having been told that there was no need as the fumes were not toxic.
	Monday 7 September 1981 Just as the blaze was being brought under control and residents were moving back into their homes at 8.30 am a huge fireball leapt 100 feet into the air. A fierce blaze started among the drums and the watching crowds scattered. Pupils at Buckton Vale School were absent on Monday, the main reason being fatigue, many of the 200 pupils having been evacuated during the night before.
A cloud of poisonous gas hung over the area. Local residents were advised to boil drinking water as the supply had been contaminated.The body of a missing lorry driver was found at 12.30 pm by firemen searching the ruins.
Background About Chemstar The firm had employed 17 people and they processed pharmaceuticals, paint, printing ink, adhesives and dirty chemicals by the tanker load. The manufacturers were obliged by law to pay for proper incineration of low flashpoint organic chemicals.

In 1978 it cost Chemstar from £10 to £150 to refine this kind of chemical waste, they would charge firms between £20 and £300 per tonne and so were onto a winner. Chemstar had a ready market and business boomed, they were handling 10,000 litres of chemical waste a week in 1975 and this grew to 100,000 litres by 1978 making a net profit of £100,000.

	Chemical Legacy The firm had been operating in Carrbrook for 5 years and stored a variety of chemicals and solvents, recycling petrol based chemicals. Some of the drums were stacked alongside the garden wall of the adjacent house. The fumes had for a long time been causing nausea to people living in the area. After the explosion chemicals were washed away in the local stream and complaints were made about smells from the River Tame in Ashton, where some of the washed away chemicals were received. A pall of smoke hung over the village and villagers complained about headaches and tightness in the chest from chemical fumes. The site was sealed off, but only to protect the testing equipment, some of the gates had no padlocks on them and access could still be gained to the site.
	Leading toxic chemical experts were brought in, the legacy left behind after the fire was 400 different chemicals found in the soil at the site including cancer causing benzene, chlorinated solvents which are carcinogens, chlorinated hydrocarbons toxic to the liver, xylene and toluene which can affect the brain and liver. Dioxins were found at the site, one of the most deadly man-made products.
	A form of dioxin was: used as agent orange in Vietnam; a poison gas cloud over Seveso in Italy that had killed hundreds of people; the cause of 235 families being evacuated from the federal disaster area in Love Canal, a New York State suburb. In Carrbrook dogs were sickening, rabbits were born without eyes, guinea pigs became emaciated lost hair and died, a pig was lost when her litter died before birth, a kitten died of a brain tumour at 3 months, 40 pheasants died, feral rabbits were no longer seen, the numbers of seed eating birds decreased and deformed hedgehogs were regularly seen. Residents were warned not to eat home grown vegetables.
	The Phoenix Arises From The Ashes In 1983 it was recommended that the contaminated soil be removed from the site, and it was removed in 1989. The area was cleared of all debris and toxic waste. Tameside Council has since landscaped the area and planted trees. The area is now known as Cowbury Green and was officially opened on 8th April 1993.
It was our ground zero that brought local residents together as the Friends of Carrbrook who formed the idea to revamp what had been the old bowling green...... Special thanks to Bob Butterworth for his original newspaper cuttings of this event.