General housekeeping and maintenance activities affect all plant workers. Poor housekeeping frequently masks hazards contributing to accidents. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has a recent story that emphasizes the importance of housekeeping in our industry.
A spark from machinery cutting scrap aluminum started a small fire at an Alcoa facility in Iowa, in the United States.
The fire was reported just after 8 AM during the week July 28, 2013.
A spokesperson for Alcoa said workers were cutting scrap aluminum when a spark from the cutting caught some hydraulic fluid on fire. The fire spread to the outside of a mill, which was not running at the time of the fire.
The fire was quickly extinguished, and damage was considered to be minor.
No injuries were reported.
The APSB would like to congratulate this facility on successfully dealing with this fire, resulting in no injuries.
Have you heard of the safety slogan "Puddles are problems"? No, well the APSB just made it up. Puddles can arise from various sources. Such as:
- Leaky roofs
- Moveable equipment
- Spilled chemicals
- Machinery
- Outside contractors
All puddles should be investigated for their source and corrected. Too many incidents occur when puddles are a contributing factor of making a small incident a big incident. This incident would not have occurred if there was no puddle of hydraulic fluid for the spark to land into.
The Aluminium Times had an article about good housekeeping practices. It can be viewed here.
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