Investigation into cause of wastewater plant fire

A wastewater treatment plant in east Christchurch was extensively damaged by the fire that broke out at the site yesterday.

Firefighters were called to the blaze at the Bromley plant just before 3.10pm.

• Fire at Christchurch wastewater plant

Thick black smoke was visible around the city and the Canterbury DHB issued a public health warning.

Fire and Emergency NZ spokesman Andrew Norris said firefighters had contained the fire, but it was still not out.

He said crews will be there until it's been completely extinguished and made safe to be handed back to Christchurch City Council staff. Firefighters will likely be there for most of today.

Norris said fire staff will be meeting with council staff this morning and working with Environment Canterbury on air monitoring.

The plant is operating at a limited capacity.

Operations manager Adam Twose said it has suffered extensive damage.

"The roof caught fire and that collapsed in and has burnt through the plastic media so we have four appliances still here at the moment to try and get the flames out."

Twose said a contractor on site suffered a minor superficial injury during the incident.

Contractors had been working on the roof when the fire broke out.

"That will form part of the investigation into the cause."

Christchurch residents can still continue to use water and flush the toilet as normal, he said.

"My staff have started turning up to site this morning. We still need to wait for clearance from FENZ before we can get on to the rest of the site and work through that.

"I'll be getting engineers and project managers coming out from civic to start working out what the process is going forward from here."