"A rather high column of smoke immediately rose upwards..."

 

Every plant no matter their size or function has hidden hazards present. Many of these hidden hazards only become known when an incident occurs. All too often the incident involves an injury or fatality. The aluminium company will state we have always done this (procedure, task, etc.) without any incident. All too often companies will deem a practice or procedure as safe because historically there has been no incidents. That is wrong. Only when a through investigation is conducted did the company realize that the practice or procedure was always dangerous. It was only because of luck that an incident did not occur previously. Here is a recent incident highlighting a hidden hazard:

It was just after 2 pm one afternoon during the second week in April 2021 when a fire broke out in the premises of an aluminium company in Europe. A rather high column of smoke immediately rose upwards, sparking the curiosity of many.

Immediately on the spot the firefighters of two neighboring towns, as well as the local police and police officers. Eight vehicles engaged in extinguishing operations. Civil protection is also on alert, but its intervention was not necessary.

The flames would have flared up from the oil of a press. Despite the grandeur of the smoke released - and also seen from great distances, even from neighboring municipalities - the fire was quickly put out.

Fortunately, the episode did not cause any injuries. Even the government department (for air quality) on site to verify the actual healthiness of the air, so as to avoid unpleasant 'side effects' due to the fire.

We are thankful no one was hurt in the aluminium plant nor the fire fighters extinguishing the blaze. But, that is not always the case. Hydraulic oil fires produce a large quantity of smoke. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has reported on incidents where workers became disoriented in the smoke during emergency evacuation and got lost in their plant. In those cases fire fighters had to search and rescue the disoriented individuals. Sadly, sometimes the fire fighters cannot rescue the lost workers and they perish from smoke inhalation. That is why we recommend plants have periodic emergency evacuation drills.

Now pardon us and let us get on our proverbial soap box. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has posted numerous incidents in the past about flammable hydraulic oil incidents. Aluminium plants have burned to down because of these fires. Please note that these fires typically occur when hydraulic hoses/piping develop a hole and allowing the hydraulic oil (which is under immense pressure) to escape. The holes are very small, diameter of a pin hole. The escaping flammable hydraulic oil is atomized into a fine mist. This mist is flammable. To ignite all it needs is an ignition source. In our plants there are numerous ignitions sources. Once this mist ignites, the escaping hydraulic fluid ignites and in essence it becomes a flame thrower. It is very dangerous. Every facility we tour at some point we ask the plant manager if “the hydraulic oil is flammable?”. Almost all respond “I don’t know?”. We respond “Then who knows?”

At your plant, is the hydraulic oil flammable? If you don’t know, who does? Best investigate because we would hate to post another flammable hydraulic oil incident.

This topic was so important to use we authored an article on it. It can be found here:

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