Fire
crews responding to the midwest USA just before 11:30 p.m. on evening during
the week of October 30, 2016 found flames coming from a vent duct on the roof at an
aluminium company.
The
vent stack contained aluminum dust, so water could not be used to extinguish
it. Firefighters used a collection of portable CO2 and Dry Chemical
extinguishers from their rigs and aluminium company to extinguish the fire.
The
roof construction was corrugated steel with a thick rubber overlay.
Firefighters used large rotary saws to cut away the metal roof so that the
rubber overlay would not continue to burn from the heat of the vent stack.
The
process of cutting through the metal and thick rubber was labor intensive and
created problems for the saws and blades, as the thick rubber turned to tar
when heated and clogged up the equipment, according to a press release from the
local fire department.
Other news reports state that fire crews took 90 minutes to
extinguish. We congratulate the fire department on successfully putting this
fire out safely.
Good housekeeping practices on the shopfloor are easier to control
than accumulation in exhaust vents. Especially exhaust vents that have
horizontal runs where accumulations can occur. Luckily the fire department and
aluminium company had enough class d fire extinguishers to put this fire out.
All too often the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog will post an incident where not
enough class d fire extinguishers were available. Which resulted in small
growing into a large fire. We recommend that every plant should rely solely on
what special fire extinguishers that they have in stock, versus assuming that
the local fire department will have enough. Most cases the local fire
department will not have enough. Unfortunately, aluminium plants only realize
that after a fire.
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