Monday, April 13, 2020

"Fire at a foundry factory....melted aluminum material burned out."


On some of our talks we have a slide that shows dominoes falling down. It’s an impressive slide. The dominoes are 4 meters tall! We use this as an example of what commonly happens in aluminium plants when molten metal explodes. If the molten metal lands on a combustible a fire will result. AS history has shown as molten metal catching something on fire then can eventually burn the building down. Yes, dominoes. Here is a recent incident

There was a fire at a foundry in Japan, and one employee had a light injury.

Before 11 am one morning during the week of March 22, 2020, the fire department was informed that a fire had started from a foundry plant.

Six fire trucks were used to extinguish the fire, and about 72 square meters of the ceiling burned, and the fire was extinguished approximately two hours later.

The fire caused a 25-year-old male employee, who was initially extinguished, to lightly injure his right hand and was treated at a hospital.
About 60 other employees were injured.

Police are investigating the cause of the fire, considering that the fire that had melted the aluminum material may have spread to the ceiling exhaust fan and spread further to the ceiling.

We pray that the injured worker recovers fully from their injuries. The news media mentions “60 other employees were injured”. We do not feel that to be accurate only because viewing a video of the incident we notice no ambulances. We would expect to see many ambulances if 60 workers were injured. We suspect that the 60 workers simply evacuated the foundry when the fire broke out.

The fire may have not occurred or at minimum not have grown if the aluminium fines/dust on the roof joists and in the exhaust fans not accumulated. Good housekeeping is a domino that will always fall if given the opportunity.

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