Metrofile is expecting to receive a report within three weeks on the cause of a fire at its Durban storage facility.
The fire broke out at the Westmead facility on the night of 18 March, in the smallest and oldest of the three retention centres on the site. The company says more than a third of the documents were either at their destruction date, or were due for destruction by next month.
Of the rest of the cartons, another 10% would have been due for destruction by the end of the year, the company says.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has been investigating the fire since 24 March.
Metrofile marketing director Paul Mullon says the company is still awaiting the CSIR report.
"They have told us they are still compiling a report and we expect it sometime within the next two to three weeks," he says.
Although there has not been a separate police investigation, the report will be handed over to the police should the CSIR report indicate that arson was involved, he adds. The company says the CSIR is widely considered to be the best fire investigation team in the country.
"We go to the extreme to make sure we have a very secure environment," Mullon says. For example, electricity is used only when necessary, such as when a hoist needs to be powered. The warehouses also use natural lighting instead of electrical lighting.
The company has emphasised several times that it takes fire prevention very seriously.
An interim report on the incident, issued on 15 April by KwaZulu-Natal divisional director Adrian Wilkins, says fire detection and prevention systems are regularly inspected and maintained, and there had been three emergency evacuation drills of all personnel at the site in the preceding five months.
"Hoists within the warehouses are routinely inspected and maintained and perimeter electrified fencing is inspected," the report says.
The company says the fire department gave Metrofile a clean bill of health for the facility just a month before the incident.
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