There are a many
different types of combustible materials in our plants. In most cases these
materials go about unnoticed on a daily basis. It is only when incidents arise
does one look back and realize that they were operating under a false safety
belief regarding the storage, movement, use, etc. False safety beliefs are
habits or practices that overtime have been thought to be safe but are actually
not. False safety beliefs can begin when a lack of knowledge transforms into a
habit or a practice. Overtime those practices are assumed to be safe. It is
only after an incident resulting in an injury or death that the practice is
found to actually be a hazard. Here is a recent story that luckily resulted in
no injuries.
Fires broke out at a local
recycling plant on Wednesday afternoon, November 25, 2015.
Shortly after 2 p.m. on Wednesday, the
Leitchfield Fire Department (LFD) was called to an aluminium recycling plant in
Kentucky, in the USA in response to an industrial fire.
According to Leitchfield Fire Chief, the
plant, serves as a recycling center for items such as old vehicle engines and
transmissions.
Items to be recycled are placed on plates and
inserted into an oven to be melted down. After removing one of the plates, the
workers at the plant set it down too closely to pallets with cardboard boxes on
them, and the plate caught the boxes and pallets on fire, the fire chief said.
Upon arriving on the scene, Leitchfield
firefighters found numerous piles of items to be recycled, in various locations
around the plant, in flames. The fire chief said the fires were also moving
toward a chicken barn located about 50 yards away.
LFD personnel knocked the fires down within 15
to 20 minutes, according to LFD Captain.
After the blazes were
contained to the plant and extinguished, firefighters started overhaul,
continuously spraying water on the smoking piles of transmissions and engines
to prevent them from overheating and burning again, the fire chief said.
No injuries were reported. The structures at
the plant received minor damages to their metal portions but remained
structurally sound. LFD personnel cleared the scene at 3:44 p.m.
The Aluminium
Plant Safety Blog is glad that no plant personnel nor fire department personnel
were injured in this incident. The APSB would recommend not placing or storing
combustible materials near an operating furnace.
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