About 40 firefighters spent more than 24 hours cooling three fuel tanks alongside four others that were destroyed by a fire at a fuel distributor in Chapeco, western Santa Catarina. The fire started on Monday morning (13).

Military fire departments were called to extinguish the fire on Monday morning – Photo: VK/ND Fire Department

According to the fire service, a total of nine tanks containing 6.9 million liters of products, including gasoline, ethanol and diesel, are being cooled. Of these, three, who are in the direct line of fire, receive special work from the teams. They maintain temperatures below 50°C.

“The corporation’s goal is to maintain control of the flames in these now-exploded tanks until the fire is completely extinguished,” the agency said. IC and RS teams are working on the incident 24 hours a day with the support of city hall water carriers and private companies.

The fire is expected to be under control by the end of the day on Tuesday (14). The four burnt tanks contained 1.8 million liters of flammable liquid.

“It is humanly impossible to put out those tanks that are burning, because there is a very large amount of fire. Fires involving flammable liquids cannot be extinguished with water,” says Sergeant Duane Pedroso.

Internet users have doubts whether there is still a risk of explosions among the tanks that survived the fire. Colonel Maiko Alcantara explains that this risk is very low. Watch the video below:

Firefighters explain the risks – Video: Fire Service SK/ND