Firemen tackle crematorium fire

Firemen were called out to deal with an unplanned blaze in an Austrian crematorium at a cemetery in Graz this week.

The blaze was caused when a filter overheated and was difficult to bring under control because of the thick isolation around the filter.

The filter was fixed to one of the ovens used to burn the remains after the temperature around the filter reached 300 degrees centigrade. Once officials realised was a problem they had switched the device of but by then the was already a fire in the filter.

The files difficult to bring under control and in the end firemen had a blast water in through the vents used to clear the filter. Repair work is expected to take some time and until then the crematorium is out of action.