"worker and one of the police officers, suffer smoke inhalation"

 

In almost every aluminium plant exists a hidden hazard. This hazard stays for the most part unknown till an incident occurs. It is only then do companies realize the hazard that is present in their workplace. Here is a recent incident.

A fire in a company in Spain forces the eviction of its workers. A company in an industrial estate suffered a fire inside last night and a worker and a police officer had to be treated for smoke inhalation.

The event occurred at 9:45 p.m. in a factory of technical parts by an aluminium casting.

A patrol of the Local Police of (town), which was carrying out surveillance work for was the first to go to the place when they observed a forceful gray smoke and a flare from one of the factories, and they found to a group of workers outside the compound in a strong state of excitement and shocked by the event.

After verifying that the workers were in good physical condition, immediately afterwards and as a first security measure, the police officers proceeded to evacuate the rest of the personnel who were working from the interior of the ship, also avoiding that any worker and a company manager to access its interior once it was vacated until the arrival of the Fire Department.

A few moments later, a crew of firefighters from (from local town) arrived at the scene, who finished putting down the fire inside the ship as well as carrying out ventilation work.

After the visual inspection carried out inside by the emergency bodies together with the technicians and managers of the company, it seems that the origin of the fire was caused by the crack in an oil tube of one of the injection machines, whose content was to the deposit where the aforementioned metal is smelted (at an approximate temperature of 400 degrees), at which time the ignition occurred, strikingly forming the large amount of smoke and flames that could be seen from afar.

A basic life support ambulance also appeared at the scene, whose personnel had to attend to a company worker and one of the police officers, both due to smoke inhalation, although without serious consequences.

We pray that the injured worker and police officer recover fully from their smoke inhalation.

Yet again this is an incident involving flammable hydraulic oil. Thankfully, the firefighers were able to extinguish the fire. Prior to the pandemic when we would visit countless plants we would ask our hosts “Is the hydraulic fluid used in their plant flammable?” Commonly we would be told “We never had a problem in the past.”

We challenge every reader of this article to ask their workplace if their hydraulic fluid is flammable.

The Aluminium Times magazine had an article on this topic. It can be downloaded here:

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