Case study Kitchen fire damage at Cobham MSA

Background

Extra MSA Cobham is a motorway service area located between junctions J9 and J10 of the M25. Cobham is easy to access from both carriageways of the M25 and conveniently situated for both Heathrow and Gatwick. The Food Court is home to some of the UK’s leading brands, including Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC, Greggs, Nando’s and Pizza Express.

Issue

During the spring of 2015, a fire broke out at around 7.30am in a restaurant kitchen area within the Food Court. Around 40 firefighters tackled the blaze, which resulted in the entire site being temporarily shut down. At around 9.30am, the incident had been brought under control, at which point the issue was reported to Evotech’s 24/7 helpdesk. The site’s petrol station was reopened, along with the HGV parking area and slip roads into the services from the M25. However, the rest of the site remained closed until a full site safety investigation had been carried out.

Response provided

• 24/7 365 helpdesk response and coordination
• Mobile engineers urgently despatched to carry out a full investigative survey of the electrical systems and identify remedial works required
• Engineers carried out the required repairs to the electrical systems, before conducting a fixed wire test on the affected circuits
• Site fully reopened within 96 hours of reporting the incident