"A dozen workers were present when the explosion occurred..."

Emergency evacuations should be planned and practiced. Because one never knows when an emergency will occur. Here is a recent incident highlighting the importance of emergency evacuation drills.

The (name omitted) foundry in (town name omitted) was destroyed by fire on Thursday morning, causing damage that could amount to several million dollars. Possible mishandling of products used in day-to-day business operations could be at fault. 

Highly combustible products were in the vast building on (street name omitted), explains director of the (local) Fire Department. When handling them, a problem, the nature of which is not yet known, led to auto-ignition. An explosion followed.

A dozen workers were present when the explosion occurred. Some of them were overcome by smoke and were examined by first responders and paramedics, but none were taken by ambulance to hospital. 

A huge plume of smoke, visible for miles around, was rising from the blaze. The City also quickly issued a notice to citizens inviting them to keep the windows of their property closed and to interrupt their ventilation system to prevent smoke from spreading there, a preventive approach. 

When the sappers arrived, the flames had already done a lot of damage.

“The structure was all under attack. We had a fire all over the structure, explains the chief of the fire brigade. We were in defensive mode. We protected the environment and we put down the flames as quickly as possible. In two hours, some thirty firefighters from (four fire departments) managed to put down the flames and at the same time reduce the fumes.

 

Local environmental government agency was deployed to the scene. Public Health specialists were also expected to take air samples to assess toxicity using their mobile laboratory. "There is no danger at the moment," said director of the (local) Fire Department. The sixty-year-old building, which was formerly occupied by the City's public works department, was completely destroyed. The damage could run into millions of dollars. 

An error in the handling of the products could be at the origin of the blaze, but "we are still determining what happened", underlines the director of the (local) Fire Department.

Firefighters confirm that the building of more than sixty years is a total loss. The owner assures that he will support his employees. He intends to find a way to restart production.

We offer our sincere condolences to the workers of this foundry on their loss of their building. We pray that they can find a nearby alternative and restart production of their unique castings. The news media do not state what was mixed that resulted in an explosion occurring. We have to assume this explosion resulted in flames igniting nearby combustible material. We do not think this explosion was a result of a molten metal and water reaction. Because from our experience, the workplace normally says “a molten metal explosion/spill occurred”. Regardless, highly combustible products were handled and an explosion resulted. If we find out what those products were, we’ll update this post.

So for every post the reader and their workplace can learn and make their company safer. Even though the information of what products resulted in an explosion in unclear. Any workplace should know at any moment what products/chemicals that are in place are hazardous. If you don't use this incident as motivation to start to learn. When you know what chemicals are in your workplace you can begun to train your personnel on their safe storage, handling, and use. 

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