“The fire traveled up some of the vents and into the roof,”

The importance of evacuation plans have been mentioned before by the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog. Our industry has done a commendable job on training our workers, as well as visitors and contractors on what do to when an evacuation occurs. Here is another story that shows how an effective evacuation plan saves lives:

No one was injured when fire erupted around a couple of machines at Nichols Aluminum in Decatur, Alabama in the United States one morning during the week of November 10, 2014.

Decatur Fire & Rescue Division Chief said grease caught fire around the machines on the west side of the plant about 5 a.m.

"The fire the fire traveled up some of the vents and into the roof," fire chief said. "The plant's carbon dioxide fire suppression system went off and all employees were evacuated, but the fire only impacted the one area of the plant.

The plant employs 130 workers at the facility, all were accounted for after the evacuation.

The fire chief said fire fighters from Station 2 returned to plant at the request of Nichols officials to remain on scene during the machines' restart.

This fire was challenging on many fronts to the employees working in the facility as well as to the firefighters. The APSB would like to commend Nichols Aluminum on an effective evacuation of all personnel resulting in no injuries. Nichols Aluminium's decision to request the fire department to come back and to be present when the piece of machinery was a commendable decision to say the least. 

No doubt Nichols Aluminium had confidence that nothing would go wrong. But, just in case they decided to ask for assistance from the local fire department. That decision illustrated the forward thinking that Nichols Aluminum had after the original fire. Good Job!

Occupational Safety & Health Administration has a great document dealing with evacuation plans, which can be found here.

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