"30-foot diameter fireball erupted and engulfed both men.."

The use of hydraulic oil in our plants is very common. Here is a recent incident emphasizing the hazard of flammable hydraulic oils.

Two men were critically burned one afternoon in August 2018 after a 30-foot fireball ignited inside their building in the USA.

Local firefighters were called to the aluminium manufacturing plant around 12:20 p.m. for a reported person on fire.

Crews arrived and found two men with critical burns on their bodies.

According to fire investigators, a hydraulic press was leaking fluid, which came into contact with an ignition source. When it ignited, it caused a fireball that was 30 feet around.

Both of the burned men were inside that fireball.

Captain of the local Fire Department says crews were at the scene within three minutes.

"Their industrial first aid squad was doing a very nice job. They had some of the clothes off the guys. They were treating the burns," said the fire captain. "The things you have to do when you get burned is make sure you get away from the burn, stop the burning, cool it off with water. They were that, and we just continued the process until AMR got there, and we continued working with them until they transported to local hospital (10 kilometers away), both of them."

Firefighters say a total of five employees were exposed to the fireball.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog pray that the injured workers recover fully from their burns. We acknowledge that they have a long recovery in front of them.

From further news reports we assume that the workers were not wearing fire proof clothing. Which is not uncommon in manufacturing plants where workers are not exposed to ignition sources during the daily task. But, all too often plants fail to acknowledge or question if their hydraulic oil is flammable. Sadly, many plant managers realize too late. The APSB has posted numerous incidents where leaking machinery, equipment, etc. of flammable hydraulic oil found an ignition source.

We would be remiss to not mention that poor housekeeping was a contributing factor in this incident. Why? Because one can imagine the amount of leaking hydraulic oil that could generate a fireball 10 meters in diameter?

We hope that the readers of this post will ask their maintenance department the following question:

Where do we have flammable hydraulic oil in use in our plant?

Please comment.