South Yorkshire Times, October 10th
£20,000 Damage in Crisps Works Fire
Over half a million packets of crisps went up in flames in a warehouse blaze at the XL Crisp Company’s factory in Sheffield Road Conisbrough early Saturday.
“When we have rebuilt the damage done by the fire, it will have cost about £20,000” said Mr C M Wright a director of the firm.
But production at the factory which employs 80 people has not been affected.
Mr Wright also said that they did not anticipate any long delay in deliveries, “ Two days at the most. The cause of the fire to the best of our knowledge is the spontaneous combustion in part of the stocks of crisps.” he added
Most of the crisps destroyed in the fire were ready for shipment all over the country. On Monday a skeleton staff of maintenance men was working at the factory.
On Saturday when the flames broke out they tried to stop the flames spreading from the warehouse to nearby machines rooms where machinery worth thousands of pounds is installed with fire extighuishers.
VAN SAVED
Firemen from Mexborough and Conisbrough confined the blaze to the warehouse which was gutted. Six delivery vans standing near the warehouse where driven away by staff when the fire started on Sunday members of staff and a local farmer with tractor started mopping up operations and production Monday.