electrical arc burns one, plant then loses power then catches on fire....

Sometimes incidents are like dominoes. Where one incident results in another incident and another. Here is a recent story:

An aluminium plant employee in the USA was taken to the hospital following a fire one night during the week of February 26, 2017.

A statement from the company says the unidentified employee was burned by an electrical arc, which caused a power outage in parts of the plant.

Company officials say the outage “contributed to a fire in the facility’s bake furnace” and the local fire department put the fire out around 9 p.m.

There were no other injuries, officials say, and the plant’s molten metal production was unaffected.

Officials say they are investigating.

Other media reports puts that the plant’s internal fire brigade fought the fire but needed extra water and call the local fire department for assistance.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog prays that the injured worker recovers fully from his injuries. We have posted numerous incidents involving the hazard of electrical arcing. Unfortunately it appears that the electrical arcing that injured the worker resulted in a loss of power. Subsequently, the loss of power resulted in a fire in the carbon bake area. It appears that the aluminum plant fire brigade and local fire department personnel were uninjured in extinguishing the fire.

Many plants have accident drills to train their personnel on how to respond in case of emergency. We wonder how many of our plants have drills for multiple concurrent incidents. Such as the incident above, an injured employee, loss of power, and subsequent fire.

Please comment.