100 years ago today Salford firefighters faced a potential disaster when a huge green poison gas cloud erupted from a blaze at the Isidor Frankenburg and Sons rubber mill in Greengate.
It was 1915, and the mood in Salford was tense with the war in Europe escalating and men and boys of all ages joining the armed forces.
Some 2,000 people worked at the factory, which had been established in 1867 as a rubber proofing business dealing with all kinds of noxious chemicals.
At 10.20am on Tuesday 3 July 1915 fire crews received the call that flames were shooting out of a brick chamber at the rear of the premises where chemicals were mixed and where large quantities of highly flammable and toxic carbolic bi-sulphide were stored.
Within minutes the entire fire brigade mobilised to the scene, led by the Chief Officer Mr Meyers.
The firefighters quickly realised they had a potentially fatal situation on their hands.
The chemicals were stored in steel drums and earthenware pots and if they were to explode poisonous fumes would erupt into the air, causing untold damage to the tightly-packed population in Greengate.
Crews started spraying the outside of the chamber with four water jets pulled from street mains supplies, but the real danger was inside.
Desperate to prevent a crisis Chief Myers ordered his men to don respirators and breathing helmets and pushed them forward into the building.
The first wave failed as noxious clouds overcame several firemen, who had to be dragged bodily from the warehouse by colleagues.
Firemen Hood and Nuttall were so badly gassed that they had to be rushed to the nearby Salford Royal Hospital on Chapel Street.
Searching for options Chief Myers called for his crews to flood the burning room with water but it made little or no impact on the blaze.
Suddenly, steel drums hit breaking point and started to pop and explode in the intense heat.
One drum was blasted hundreds of yards into the River Irwell, no doubt adding to the industrial pollution flooding into the water daily.
A greenish-violet flare of poison gas then burst into the air over Greengate and could be seen up to half a mile away.
Onlookers gathered on New Bridge Street to watch the conflagration, despite the obvious danger so Superintendent Johnson from the Salford Police Force was called in to set up barriers and move the public to a safe distance.
One of the onlookers told the Salford City Reporter: “If that’s anything like the gas that is being used by the Germans then it’s awful.”
The fire crews battled on for several hours with what was then rather antiquated equipment but managed to bring the fire under control – a huge success in an event where hundreds if not thousands of lives could have been lost.
The mill was not too heavily damaged by the fire and its industrial production continued, employing thousands of families in Salford.
In 1919 Frankenburg’s mill merged with the Greengate and Irwell Rubber Company until it was taken over in 1970 by The Allied Polymer Group.
All images © Greater Manchester Fire Service Museum
