"fire hit the roof and caused enormous smoke..."

 

Roof fires are a possibility that aluminium companies have to acknowledge. We pray that no fire every breaks out at an aluminium plant, and we sure do pray that if a fire breaks out that it does not happen on a roof. But they do occur, and here is an incident from our growing backlog of incidents that highlights the seriousness of roof fires:

 

At the end of the afternoon, a fire broke out in a business premises of an aluminium foundry in Western Europe in July 2020. Soon after the report was scaled up to a medium fire. After the arrival of the first fire truck, it was scaled up to major fire.

Several fire-fighting vehicles from the surrounding municipalities have been called upon to fight the fire, including the aerial platforms from (two towns 15 and 20 km away).

Looking at this photo shows the challenge that fire department had in reaching the flames. Gratefully no one was injured in extinguishing this fire.

Gratefully no one was injured in this incident. Thankfully the fire companies who responded to the scene quickly acknowledge the hazard of pouring tons and tons of water on a roof above molten metal. We acknowledge that pouring water onto molten metal would be ok as a last resort. Because it is only when molten metal covers water that an explosion could result. But, the fire companies realized they needed a specific nozzle that could be used to extinguish this fire. Who knew there were different fire nozzles? Regardless, congratulations to the fire departments that they had this specialized equipment to address this unique situation.

 

Looking at the photos it appears that the roof has some blue tarpaulins on it. We wonder if the roof was being worked on. We have reported on numerous incidents where roofs were being worked on and the supplies were stored next to a chimney. The heat from the chimney eventually ignited the supplies. We can feel relatively confident that the blue tarpaulin in the photo is on fire. We do not know if that is the combustible resulting in the enormous amount of smoke being generated. The other reason roof fires are so serious is if the combustible that ignites on the roof has the ability to travel to the roofing material itself. Big trouble will occur. We cannot help but think of this incident below.

A roof fire affected 11,000 sq. m. casthouse in 2012. This photo shows the aftermath.

This incident was because of a molten metal explosion. Resulting in the roof catching fire. Unfortunately the roof was wood and tar paper. The entire roof was quickly in flames. The resulting damage because of this roof fire financially affected this plant for years.

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