"Twenty-four firefighters went to the scene and put out the fire..."

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has posted incidents involving dust collector fires in the past. Here is a recent incident showing how dangerous these fires can be. Here is the story:

A fire broke out at one afternoon during the week January 13, 2020 on an aluminum casting factory in South Korea.

Twenty-four firefighters went to the scene and put out the fire in 35 minutes. Due to the fire, many dust collectors and bag filters were lost, resulting in property damage of estimated 9.57 million won at the fire station. Fortunately there were no casualties.

Firefighting is investigating the exact cause of the fire, as the fire started as a result of burning into the dust collection chamber, which filters dust from the process.

Thankfully, no one was injured extinguishing this fire. As the photo shows the tight areas around the dust collector for the fire department personnel to work. It is important when installing a dust collector to consider various factors if a fire started. Can fire department personnel have easy access to the all sides of the dust collector? As we have seen in this incident this dust collector was installed next to the building. No doubt it was done because of space limitations. If you do not have space limitations please consider moving the dust collector a few meters away from the building. Lastly, we recommend not installing dust collectors inside buildings if possible.

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