Firefighters spent nearly seven hours flushing out a basement at a city gym.
A team of 20 workers were despatched to the Virgin Active gym at The Capitol Centre at Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, yesterday morning after a water leak in the cellar.
The crew from Bamber Bridge was called out at 6.30am after a flooded basement was contaminated with chemicals and spent the rest of the day diluting and monitoring the contamination.
Crew manager Phil Henry said: “It was a complicated procedure. Initially there was a leak of water into the basement and as the water levels were rising the chemicals which are used to make the chlorine for the pool got mixed in with the rising water, so that became contaminated.
“The main issue for us was whether they (the water and chemicals) had mixed enough to cause chlorine to leak into the mains water.”
He added that as fire fighters pumped out the water, the chemical mix became more concentrated so they had to keep testing the water.
Four breathing apparatus, chemical protection suits, a decontamination shower, one jet for dilution, a thermal image camera and monitoring equipment were all used.
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