By Candice Boyle
A NEWPORT firefighter remains in a critical condition and is expected to be brought out of an induced coma today following last Friday’s warehouse blaze in Yarraville.
Doctors placed fire fighter Richard Zapart, 56, in a coma just hours after he was dragged from the chemical fire with extensive burns to his hands, back and legs.
They will decide today if the fire fighter’s body has responded well to last week’s surgery and if they are pleased with his progress, it is expected Mr Zapart will be brought out of a coma.
The man was in the first wave of fire fighters who attended the factory blaze at Japanese Screens and Interiors in Hall St just before 9am on Friday morning.
Western zone metropolitan fire brigade operations commander Ken Brown said the accident, which had almost claimed the life of the veteran fire fighter, had united the Newport fire station as its members came to terms with the accident.
“They are doing it hard, we are all doing it hard at the moment,” Mr Brown said.
“All our thoughts are with him and his family at this time and there will be on going support provided to him, his family and the crews.”
It is expected that Mr Zapart’s son and his family will be flown from Norway this week to join the fire fighter’s two other children and family at the Alfred Hospital.
Mr Brown said Mr Zapart was part of a four person team who conducted the initial search of the building to locate the fire.
Mr Zapart was knocked unconscious when the fire “flashed over” after coming into contact with flammable chemicals inside the building.
Mr Brown said it was discovered Mr Zapart was missing when leading fire fighters Mark Fincher, Brian O’Connell and Russell Johnson did a head count when they came out of the building.
“The three fire fighters retuned at enormous risk to themselves and found one of the fire fighters had been burnt,” Mr Brown said.
“It’s very lucky that the fire fighters knew exactly where to go, it was a fire that was developing and they could have easily not located the fire fighter and he would have perished in the fire.”
It is expected the three men, who retuned to fight the fire after assisting to resuscitate Mr Zapart, will be nominated for bravery awards.
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The men continued to support more than 60 fire fighters from Spotswood, Newport and Footscray who took almost three hours to control the blaze.
During the fire control efforts five workers were evacuated from the factory and a number of residents and workers were also evacuated from nearby Leek St with some treated by paramedics for watery eyes and breathing problems.
Mr Brown said the fire control efforts were hampered by the lack of knowledge of what was stored inside the factory.
“When you ask what is in there and they can’t tell you what the product is especially after the explosion it makes it very difficult for us to our job. It helps the fire fighters if they know what they are up against,” he said.
WorkSafe, the fire investigation unit and the arson squad will continue this week with a three way investigation into the fire that is thought to have ignited in wood shavings outside the factory.
Yarraville worker Frank Schlinkmann, who was working around 100 metres from the factory, said he was first alerted to the incident after hearing a second lot of fire sirens just before 9am.
Mr Schlinkmann said when he went to investigate the cause he saw the injured fire fighter on the ground with smoke coming off his clothes.
While he didn’t hear any explosions, Mr Schlinkmann said there was a lot of thick black smoke and flames that reached almost 15 metres into the air.
