"The fire was contained to the pit (under the furnace)."

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has a backlog of incidents that have not been posted yet. Our hope is that there would be no incidents to post, but we acknowledge that is not reality. Here is an incident from last year that illustrates the importance of keeping the maintenance pits under furnaces clean.

A fire broke out inside the luminum plant one night during the week of November 27, 2014 when oil and grease under a furnace became heated.

The fire was in a pit under a furnace in the plant. Local Firefighters from responded at about 7:30 p.m. in the evening.

“When the grease caught fire, it was probably because of radiant heat,” Fire Chief said. “The fire was contained to the pit.”

The plant processes scrap aluminum. When the fire broke out the plant was functioning, but there were no injuries.

“The damage estimate hasn’t been released yet,” Fire Chief said. “They have to determine the (extent of) the equipment that was lost.”

Also, plant officials will check to see if the material inside the furnace can be salvaged. There was no structural damage to the building. Another fire station also responded.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog chose to omit the aluminium company's name and location because our following commentary. This aluminium company in 2011 was cited by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration for issues involving a furnace. It is unknown if the same furnace in both incidents. Nevertheless, the 2011 involved a buildup of natural gas in an unlit furnace and subsequent explosion.

The OSHA document included the following: “The explosion created a fireball that burst out of the furnace. The Contractor felt the heat of the fireball as he stood in the crow’s nest, 20 feet away. The fireball left scorch marks on the furnace. The explosion traveled up through the ductwork and damaged several sections of the duct work as well as several duct support beams. No employees were injured.”

These incidents illustrate the hazards of furnaces in our industry. The most recent incident highlights the need of good housekeeping in the maintenance pit under all furnaces. The APSB has posted incidents where molten metal has traveled into the furnace under the maintenance pit and an explosion resulted. Some of our industry’s worst catastrophes resulted when molten metal escaped its holding container and entered in the maintenance pit. A long standing best safety practice was to coat the maintenance pit with Wise Chem. Overtime that tradition was ignored by some in our industry either because of cost or forgetfulness. When explosions of varying degrees began occurring these aluminium companies realized that going away from best safety practices was not in their best interests.

Here is an article that discusses molten metal explosions involved with maintenance pits.

  

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