Thread: Picton fire

http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopS...on_774390.html

Sad to hear!

It's a picturesque little town!

Actually I stayed there for 2-3 nights working on one of my first major productions!

If I remember well it was about some dairy family business winning a major competition!

There were 50 people working inside at the time. Lucky no one was hurt. The fire started in an area where 5Mil worth of upgrades had just occured.

Interface Flor has been in Picton for 40 years and contrary to what that article said:

ABC is reporting that 180 jobs will be lost.

Interface Flor has committed to remaining in Picton:

Originally Posted by Wollondilly Advertiser

Disaster to relief
BY MICHAEL COX
25 Jul, 2012 12:00 AM
ALL 180 Interface workers employed at the carpet tile manufacturer's Picton factory were relieved to hear that they won't lose their jobs after a blaze destroyed the plant on Friday night.
Staff gathered at the Picton manufacturing site in Henry Street on Monday morning to learn their fate.

Interface Asian Pacific chief executive officer Rob Coombs said the workers would not lose their jobs.

"They have nothing to fear in terms of their livelihood . . . our focus is securing the livelihood of our people," he said.

"We have a good insurance policy that covers our contents and the business discontinuity.

"Salaries are covered for the next 12 months."

Mr Coombs said Interface would rebuild the plant in Picton and he expected to have the factory operating again within 12 to 18 months.

Engineering administrator Cheryl Nardone said she was relieved to hear her job was safe.

"There was a huge breath of relief," she said when the company's employees learned that they would continued to be paid.

"There's a lot of people here with kids and mortgages."

The factory was recently upgraded with new equipment.

"Everything that went up was brand new," Mr Coombs said.

Interface, which has operated out of Picton for 40 years, had invested $25 million extending the state-of-the-art manufacturing plant over the past five years.

Mr Coombs said the plant was the company's second most profitable arm across the 80 countries in which Interface operated.

"The fire is clearly a blow to all the people who work with Interface in Australia but particularly to the people who work here," he told the Picton staff on Monday morning.

The cause of the fire is unknown and is still being investigated.

He said the fire ignited in the backing lines where the manufacturing process used "a lot of heat".

"Something caught alight and the flames went into the roof and the insulation caught fire," he said.

Chemicals in the plant have been contained after fears of leakage into Redbank creek.