Hospital switch room fire at Wahroonga
Published: 26th March 2009
This afternoon firefighters from Beecroft, Gordon, Castle Hill, Ryde, Gladesville, Eastwood, Hornsby, Forestville, Lane Cove, Willoughby, Hazmat specialists from Greenacre and St Marys and senior officers responded to a fire in a hospital in Wahroonga. Fire crews arrived to find a fire in a switch room and were unable to switch off the high voltage power as it was required for an operation that was being performed in an operating theatre and the intensive care and recovery units for patient care. The necessary equipment to extinguish the fire was positioned near the switch room while Hazmat specialists set up monitoring stations both inside and outside the hospital. Once the operation was completed and hospital staff had moved patients to other areas of the hospital, firefighters, with assistance from the electrical authority, shut down the power. Fire crews then entered the switch room and extinguished the fire.