On the night of 12th July 1993, a fire broke out at the residential camp of one of our major service contractors. The camp was of portacabin style construction, with a central Mess/Kitchen/Bar/Recreational complex, consisting of an aggregation of cabins, approximately 24 in number. Sleeping accommodation was provided as separate individual cabins in a senior and junior camp. This central complex has been destroyed entirely by the fire, however the surrounding accommodation modules escaped serious damage due largely to their physical separation from the central complex. The fire started in the kitchen, where a saucepan of hydraulic oil with a flash point of 99 deg C was being heated on the kitchen stove in order to condition a small electrical equipment component. The oil ignited, and escalated rapidly to a major fire.