From Wakefield to Burnley: the fire risk bakeries can’t afford to ignore

The fire on 4th May was contained to one side of the building and while production has since resumed, Warburtons confirmed its other bakeries are covering output in the interim. With the site reported to produce 1.4 million crumpets each day, the supply chain pressure was considerable. The Bolton-based family business operates 12 bakeries across the UK. Whether any of those sites are protected by automatic sprinkler systems is not publicly known. The incident is once again another timely reminder of the scale of disruption a bakery fire can cause and of how differently these events can end.

Bakeries have fire risks The pattern is well established. In June 2023, fire swept through the Roberts Bakery site at Northwich in Cheshire. Twelve crews from Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service tackled the blaze, which cut the company's bread production capacity by nearly two thirds. The business survived, but the disruption lasted more than a year, production was outsourced with quality consequences, the workforce shrank significantly, and the company ultimately changed hands. That same September, a fire at David Wood Baking's Dudley site required more than 100 firefighters and 30 fire engines to bring

under control, with crews drawing water from a nearby canal. The cause was later confirmed as accidental. Half the building was destroyed. Earlier incidents tell a starker story. In February 2020, the Speedibake factory in Wakefield was destroyed in a catastrophic blaze that required more than 140 firefighters and covered the city centre in thick black smoke. The site's owner, Associated British Foods, concluded the cost of a full rebuild was simply too great. The factory closed permanently and around 160 jobs were lost. In West London's Park Royal area, a fire destroyed the Rayan Bakery on Minerva Road in July 2020, and a further blaze struck a neighbouring Al Bahij bakery on the same road just two years later, a troubling coincidence. Neither site had the benefit of an automatic sprinkler system.

The contrast with Jones’ Village Bakery in Wrexham is striking. After a devastating fire destroyed their flagship site in 2019, the company chose to rebuild. The business invested £115 million, constructed a new 14,000 sqm bakery three times the size of the original, and grew from 350 to over 1,000 staff. It is an extraordinary story of resilience, but one that required years of effort and enormous resource. The question is: how much of that disruption could have been avoided with automatic sprinklers in place from the outset?

We may often think of bakeries as places with flour handling, processing, mixing, baking and packaging processes. An obvious focus would be on the industrial ovens which can be tens of metres long or flour silos due to the potential for dust explosions. However, modern bakeries have been transformed over time. Parts have very high fire loads in those processing areas due to the extensive use of plastics in machinery, to handling systems, and onto the very linings and construction of the buildings. When a fire takes hold, it can find a ready fuel that can be challenging to suppress.

Under current building regulations, most industrial buildings have no guidance for active fire protection. This surprises many people who see the scale of these fires and

assume the buildings must have fallen short of the rules. They had not. Meeting regulations and being adequately protected are not the same thing.

Sprinklers have been shown to contain, control or extinguish fires in 99% of cases when they operate.¹ They act in the moments before a small incident becomes a catastrophic one, limiting damage and keeping businesses running. In the event of a fire, many businesses with sprinklers are back up and running within hours.

Warburtons was fortunate to be able to continue operations elsewhere. Not every bakery will be.