Huizhou Factory of Bridgestone Caught Fire, 500 People Evacuated

In the 4:00 a.m. of Sep. 19, a workshop of Bridgestone Tires in Huizhou, Guangdong province, caught fire, more than 500 workers were evacuated, and the smell around the factory was pungent.

As of the noon, the smock was still thick and nearly 30 fire engines were standing by at the scene.

Bridgestone is one of the world’s top 500 enterprises and owns 51 factories in 24 countries around the world.

The accident happened in Bridgestone (Huizhou) Tire Co., Ltd., which is located in Huinan High-tech Industrial Park.

The factory is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bridgestone for producing truck and passenger car tires.

It is the fourth tire factory established by Bridgestone following its plants in Shenyang, Tianjin, and Wuxi, with an area of 480,000 square meters.

Local fire authority went to the factory immediately after the fire alarm and evacuated all the staff with no one injured.

The flame was put out at 7:30 a.m. on Sep. 19 and about 1,500 square meters were caught fire.

People could smell the burned tires even in 2 kilometers away.

Media learnt that the factory is two-storey building and the room on fire had plenty of raw materials of tire in storage. More than 500 workers were evacuated wearing respirators.

A staff with local environmental authority disclosed that the environment monitoring vehicle arrived at 8:00 a.m. for monitoring and sample collection 500 meters away the factory, and the data of the pollution hadn’t come out.