"caught the boxes and pallets on fire"

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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