What began as an ordinary weekday afternoon in Port Talbot quickly took a dramatic turn when a major fire at a commercial waste plant sent heavy plumes of black smoke across the town.
As it began settling over streets and homes residents sealed themselves inside.
Authorities were first alerted just after 3.39pm on Wednesday, April 29, when multiple calls reported a serious incident at an industrial estate in Dock Road.
Police confirmed a large blaze was under way and fire crews were dispatched as thick dark smoke billowed into the sky. Within minutes the skyline had changed from a bright sunny day into something much more sinister.
For those living closest to the site, particularly residents along Green Park Street, concern spiralled into fear as daylight dimmed under the weight of the smoke.
Gemma Jenkins and Paul Currie, who live on the street with their four children, said the situation escalated rapidly. “I came home after the school run and then about 20 minutes later I had a phone call telling me to look outside,” Gemma said. “It was just all black.”
She called Paul who had been in work at the time. “She just said: ‘You need to come home because it’s black’,” Paul said. “I said to the boss: ‘Look, I need to go home – there’s a fire opposite my house’ and from there it just got worse and worse and worse.”
The couple had to think about their children who were understandably shaken by the sight of smoke flooding towards their family home. Living directly opposite the river – the only thing dividing them between the raging fire – they could only watch the scenes from behind their windows.
“We’ve got four children,” Gemma said. “My six-year-old boy and little girl – they were scared.
“They were crying when they saw the fire. My other two weren’t here. But it was just chaos out here.”
The scale of the incident was evident through the level of emergency response. Crews from Port Talbot, Neath, Morriston, Ammanford, Tumble, Carmarthen, Pontarddulais, and Glynneath were all involved in efforts to contain it, supported by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, tackling a blaze that involved around 200 tonnes of commercial waste.
As the response escalated at the site attention in Green Park Street quickly shifted from what could be seen outside to what was entering people’s homes.
“It was coming through the doors and the vents,” Paul said. “We had to tape everything up – even the letterbox.”
He pointed to the outside vents of his home. “Even though they were shut it was still coming through. It was coming under the door when I taped it.
“The smell, the taste – you could taste it in the house. It was shocking.”
He said the smoke was being driven directly towards the row of houses. “It was blowing against the house, round the house. Just lucky the river was there really otherwise it would’ve spread right across – I think the house would’ve had it.”
For Paul there were also concerns about what was burning. “There were loud bangs from canisters. At one point I saw one shoot up into the air,” he recalled. “It was bad. Bad for the environment, bad for everybody living here as well as Port Talbot.”
At the peak of the fire traffic along surrounding routes was disrupted with some roads partially closed to allow emergency services access. Drivers reported delays as crews worked to manage both the fire and its wider impact on the town.
By Thursday morning the thick black smoke that had dominated the skies had begun to ease, replaced by lighter plumes as firefighters brought the situation under greater control. Even so crews remained at the scene damping down hotspots and working to prevent further flare-ups.
But for residents the disruption did not end when the flames began to subside. Stay informed on everything Neath Port Talbot by signing up to our newsletter here.
Inside their home Gemma said the effects of the fire continued into the night. Their young daughter was unable to sleep in her bedroom because of the smell of smoke.
“She was sleeping on the sofa, because her room is like a box room, but I took her into the bed with me in the end,” Gemma said.
“Our three boys as well – they wouldn’t stay in bed. Their bedroom is a bit bigger but I didn’t like them being in there to be honest.”
Two days on when speaking on Friday, although conditions have started to calm, concerns remained. “My daughter was coughing this morning but she’s not too bad now,” Gemma said.
“We’re lucky that it’s calmed down today and the rain has stopped it a little,” Paul added. “But it’s just been horrendous.”
Not far from Gemma and Paul are mother and son Joanne and Morgan who have lived on the estate for the past nine years. They described the last few days not as a passing disruption but as something that has taken over daily life entirely.
For Joanne that shift began almost immediately after the fire took hold. “I haven’t left the house since Wednesday,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Obviously I could see the thick smoke.”
What followed, she said, was a gradual closing-in of the outside world as the smoke reached the home and stayed there.
Her son’s partner, who is 10 weeks pregnant, left the property shortly afterwards. “She’s had to go and stay with her parents in Cwmbran,” Joanne said. “She didn’t want to. But I was like, with an unborn baby, she can’t stay here. It wasn’t safe.”
During the height of the incident she said Green Park Street itself became crowded with onlookers.
“When the black smoke was outside there were crowds and crowds,” she continued. “People were lying on the grass at the side of my house. There were cars everywhere.
“People with newborn babies walking around. There was a van parked on the grass taking photos. People were watching like it was a movie.”
Morgan shared in his mother’s disbelief and said he didn’t fully understand how bad the situation was until he drove into his street. “It was like probably half a second between me opening the door and covering my mouth,” he said. “As soon as I stepped out of the car I could smell it.”
Joanne added: “His eyes were streaming. He was coughing just getting out of the car.”
Morgan said: “I’m a fabricator welder for work so I am surrounded by hot metal, beam burning and welding every day. Obviously, there’s fumes everywhere but I’ve never smelt anything like the fire. It was just next-level.”
From that point, much like Paul and Gemma, the focus went in to trying to seal the house from the effects of the fire. “The smell – you can still smell it now,” Joanne said. “I’ve had to tape up my letterbox, I’ve had towels on the floor, done all the vents.”
But despite all her precautions the impact of the smoke has been apparent. “Yesterday you couldn’t see outside. It was just thick.
“That was the worst I personally felt it because the wind had changed and it started coming more towards the property…. I’ve been coughing. I’ve got a massive headache today. My eyes have been burning. It’s just been horrific.”
She said the house has become harder to live in normally – especially with their two dogs. “We had to have the dogs upstairs because they were unsettled,” she said. “I normally wouldn’t do that but I just wanted them up with us. You panic.”
Even basic routines stopped feeling possible. “We couldn’t eat in the kitchen yesterday because the smell was so strong. We were on the sofa last night watching the darts and had to cover our faces. My nose was burning, my eyes were burning,” she said. “You couldn’t see smoke in here but you could still feel it.”
She said the timing has made the experience even more difficult. “My partner passed away nine weeks ago,” she said tearfully. “It’s a lot. I need to get out. But I’m frightened. I haven’t even gotten properly dressed…. I’m absolutely exhausted.”
That sense of fear is shared by pensioner Carole Jenkins who described the past few days as an absolute “nightmare”. Carole has underlying health conditions including angina and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which she said had been badly triggered by the smoke from the fire. She described worsening shortness of breath, chesty coughs, and persistent wheezing since the incident began.
Speaking holding her inhaler in her hand she said: “This really has affected me for the last three days. I have to have my inhaler because I just go out of breath like that. It’s been an absolute nightmare to be fair. I’ve been so scared.”
Reflecting on when the fire first occurred she said the change was sudden and disorientating. “I was in the living room lying on the couch,” she said. “It just went dark and I thought: ‘Oh my God – we’re in for a storm.’”
It was only when Carole was alerted by family she realised what was happening outside.
“My daughter was shouting for me to come out,” she said. “When I went out it was just pure black. I was really, really scared.”
The sight of the smoke and its smell was overwhelming for Carole. “It hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m glad my daughter was here with me.”
Carole said the impact inside her home quickly became unmanageable at its worst. “It’s been a struggle,” she said. “But my family have been coming over. Yesterday was really bad in there. I couldn’t breathe so they took me out for the afternoon. But when I came back it was worse still.”
At one point she said she resorted to wearing a face mask inside her own home. “I had to wear a mask like the ones we had in Covid. I wore that from about half past three on Thursday afternoon until I went to bed because the smell was so strong in there.”
She said she had hoped more support would have been provided to residents. “I wish they’d evacuated us or put us somewhere,” she said. “But I’ve got the dog and I can’t go very far without her. She’s all I’ve got.”
Her family have been supporting her throughout taking it in turns to visit and check on her. “They’ve been coming over to help or stay with me. Today’s been the first day I’ve stayed in but they told me: ‘Mum, keep your doors and windows shut just in case.’”
As withJoanne familiar tasks have become difficult in the wake of the fire. Carole said: “I went to put the rubbish out earlier and when I came back in I could smell it a little bit,” she said. “So I had to go back in and put my mask on.”
She added the emotional and physical strain had continued into the following days. “This morning I had pains in my chest and my back… I thought I was going to have a heart attack. With my illnesses the last three days have really made everything worse. It hasn’t been a lovely three days.”
For Sean Glave, who lives a few houses down from Carole, the effects of the fire forced him and his family to leave their home. He said the decision to go was driven by concerns for his young daughter.
“It’s been bad,” he said. “I’ve got a four-year-old child here and it’s just been smelling of rubber all the time. We’ve had to go out. It’s only since this morning it’s started dying down.”
He described how quickly the situation developed once the fire broke out. “I was home when it happened. I could smell it first – then I came out and the whole street was in black smoke. It was like a dark cloud over everything.”
According to Sean visibility across the street was almost completely lost. “The flames were coming through the trees, the trees were burnt, and it was just black smoke right across – you couldn’t see the houses,” he said. “Crazy, honestly – I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
He said his main focus was shielding his daughter from the worst of the scene. “I made sure she didn’t see it – didn’t want to frighten her,” he added. “Even inside the house it was full of smoke – that’s why we had to go out.”
With nowhere immediate to go the family left the area temporarily to stay with relatives. “Lucky enough I’ve got family away from here. So we just went there and came back today.”
As the blaze officially moves into the recovery phase Natural Resources Wales (NRW) waste regulation officers have returned to the site. Working alongside Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service officers confirmed they are continuing to monitor conditions and assess any potential environmental impact following the fire.
Mobile air quality monitoring have been deployed and remain in place with initial readings showing particulate levels were “moderate” and below thresholds where the general population would be expected to experience health effects over a 24-hour period. While agencies have stressed long-term health impacts cannot be entirely ruled out they say current assessments indicate the risk is likely to be low.
Residents and businesses in surrounding areas are continuing to be advised to keep windows and doors closed while any smoke remains visible and to ventilate properties once conditions improve. Anyone experiencing symptoms has been urged to seek appropriate medical advice.
Fire crews also remain on site continuing damping-down operations and monitoring for any remaining hotspots. Officials say this work is expected to continue for the foreseeable future as material within the waste pile is carefully turned and extinguished.
Further increases in smoke or small flare-ups may still occur as part of that process, particularly given current weather conditions, but agencies have stressed this is consistent with the final stages of stabilising the site rather than any deterioration in the incident.
For now, as the recovery phase continues, residents can only speculate on how long that recovery will take.
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