"two people were hurt while trying to help others..."

The importance of practicing and drilling for emergency evacuations cannot be underestimated. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has posted numerous incidents where workers only have minutes to evacuate when a fire breaks out. Here is a recent incident emphasizing that workers only have minutes to safely evacuate a building when a fire breaks out.

Firefighters responded to a large, multiple-alarm industrial fire that broke out around 1:30 p.m. one day during the week of April 8^th, 2018 at an aluminum supply company in the United States, officials said. The company supplied the construction industry.

Smoke was seen billowing from the plant, near a car dealership. Local county officials said part of the roof and walls have collapsed. Authorities closed several roads in the area while they battled the blaze. Officials said a local interstate was open at Oak Forest Road only for east- and westbound traffic.

Fire officials said strong winds and those flammable materials made it tougher to put out the fire.

All employees made it out safely, but two people were hurt while trying to help others. Officials said they were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Motorists were warned to expect delays in the area.

We pray that the injured workers recover fully from their injuries. News media reports are conflicting if the injured were either workers, first responders, or good Samaritans. Regardless, they were injured while trying to help others. We commend them for their actions.

Here is a question for you to answer. When was the last time you had an evacuation drill? If you cannot answer that question quickly. You need to have an evacuation drill. On our travels throughout the industry we always ask workers we meet when their last evacuation drill was. We are amazed that many plants do not perform evacuation drills. The APSB recommends that every location perform evacuation drills.

OSHA has some further information on this topic. It can be found here.

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