Acute health effects of a fire associated with asbestos-containing fallout

In September 1994 in a disused leather factory in Tranmere, Wirral, England, there was a fire associated with asbestos-containing fallout in an urban area. This study aimed to describe the acute health effects of this acute environmental incident.

Descriptive epidemiology of acute health effects of the fire was based on solicitors' letters from compensation claimants, hospital admissions for asthma and other respiratory diseases, accident and emergency records, occupational health records of fire-fighters and police, reports of cases by general practitioners (GPs), and geographical location of calls for help and claimants.

Sixteen thousand people lived in the area worst affected by fallout. There were 344 claimants. Eighty-six per cent of claimants had a health complaint, with a total of 728 symptoms or diseases reported to be a consequence of the fire. Seventy per cent of complaints related to the respiratory tract, with 33 per cent of claimants noting sore throat, 31 per cent cough, 9 per cent exacerbated asthma, 8 per cent breathing problems and 13 per cent headaches. The number of hospital admissions for asthma and other lung diseases 1 day, 2 days, 7 days and 28 days after the date of the incident tended to be lower in the year of the fire than in other years. Within 72 h of the fire no cases connected with the fire were seen in the local accident and emergency unit. The geographical location of calls for help to the environmental health department was different from that for compensation claimants.

Hundreds of people sought compensation for the acute health consequences of the fire. Many symptoms or diseases in 344 people were attributed to the fire, but there is no hard evidence to suggest that these were directly due to the fire, although some may have been indirectly attributable to it.