East Sussex Chief Fire Officer Des Pritchard yesterday paid a moving tribute to the two fire crew who died, and the nine firefighters, one police officer and two members of the public who were injured in Sunday’s fireworks depot fire and explosion near Lewes.
Pritchard told a mid-morning press conference: ‘The nature of operational firefighting does mean that on occasions firefighters put themselves in situations that other members of other organisations simply wouldn’t.’
He said that his thoughts were with the firefighters’ families: ‘I knew these two people personally. I had the very difficult task of going to see the families involved and breaking the news.’
He added: ‘The crews that were involved are clearly very devastated by the traumatic and shocking event and by the loss of two of their colleagues.
‘Some officers are particularly traumatised, crews who had to rescue their dying and injured colleagues and assisting their colleagues away from the scene.’
One of the fire crew who died has been named as Brian Wembridge, 63 – a support officer whose roles included photographing and filming fire scenes.
The 200 metre exclusion zone set up on Sunday remained in place yesterday.
Pritchard said the scene of the explosion was still too dangerous to enter as there were acetylene cylinders on the site which firefighters were unable to locate and cool with water.
He said an Army bomb disposal unit was using remote-controlled vehicles to locate and ascertain the volatility of the cylinders.
