The fire broke out on Thursday morning at around 9.30am (15 June) with a massive plume of smoke visible for miles.
The operation employs 250 staff and the 134 people on site at the time were safely evacuated and accounted for, with no injuries. It has been part of Paragon since the group's 2019 acquisition of RR Donnelley's European BPO business.
Smoke could be seen for miles. Image: Leicestershire Fire & Rescue
Paragon global CEO Jeremy Walters told Printweek: “The team did a tremendous job of making sure everyone was evacuated to safety.
“We have no idea what has caused the fire at this stage. The emergency services have been absolutely phenomenal and we naturally have stepped back to let them do their job.
“We’ve invoked our disaster recovery plans for our customers. All our customers are aware of what’s going on, and we are tremendously grateful to them because their first priority was our people and whether everyone was okay.”
Walters said the business had three other locations where work usually handled at the South Wigston site could be relocated.
Please avoid the area of South Wigston whilst @LeicsFireRescue deal with a large fire. @LFRSFireControl @Leicester_News pic.twitter.com/n1Zh4UbWzV
— matthew cane (@matt0770) June 15, 2023
Leicestershire Fire & Rescue initially sent 10 fire crews to the fire, with station manager Nick Stanborough on the scene. He said crews were working “incredibly hard, in difficult conditions, to bring the fire under control as quickly as possible.”
Road closures were in place with residents advised to avoid the area and to keep doors and windows closed.
By 4.40pm the response had been scaled back to five appliances and one high reach unit, with damping down expected to take a number of days.
The operation's focus on inbound mail processing means the 3,195sqm facility is more akin to an office environment than a print production site.
Employees’ vehicles were stuck in the site’s car park, and Paragon arranged transport to help workers get home.
The division recently rebranded from Paragon Customer Communications to Paragon.
Paragon is the biggest division in the €1.46bn (£1.3bn) turnover Paragon Group and has sales of more than €1bn and 25 manufacturing sites across Europe.
Update: On Friday morning (16 June) Leicestershire Fire & Rescue said the incident was still open, with three appliances at the scene and fire investigation work set to commence later in the day.
