" dust coming down that was on fire..."

Aluminium fines generated through numerous processes and machinery in our workplace. The collection, transport, and storage of this material in our plants is sometimes overlooked. Here is a recent incident highlighting the importance of the air collection system in our workplaces.

An explosion within an external dust collecting system at (diecasting company) briefly lit up the sky Wednesday evening, with no reported injuries. 

Firefighters from the (town name) Department of Public Safety work together while utilizing a ladder to extinguish a fire on the roof of a section of (diecasting company) in (town name omitted) on Wednesday evening, which resulted from an explosion of fiery dust from a nearby exterior dust-collecting system.

Upon arrival, Interim Director (name omitted) said firefighters discovered flames on the roof of a section of the plant adjacent to the external dust collecting unit. 

“Flames were visible on the roof of a smaller addition with a lower roofline,” he said. 

 

According to (Interim Director), an explosion within the dust-collecting system resulted in hot dust shooting into the air, eventually returning to the ground and setting the roof on fire. 

 

“From the dust coming down that was on fire, it hit that roof that was rubber and melted through,” he said. “It then got into the ceiling joist and the roof membrane.” 

 

(Interim Director) said the fire was extinguished within minutes of the department’s arrival. “We had water on the fire immediately as we had two deck guns that flowed a large amount of water to that roof area to knock it down, so the fire was contained within minutes of us being there, though it took a little longer to put out completely because the fire melted through the rubber membrane on the roof. So some overhaul had to be done to make sure the fire was fully extinguished.” 

(Local Town) Officer and Fire Investigator said it is believed the fire was caused due to a malfunction. “I found that there was a bearing that was on the external dust collecting system that failed and came apart,” he said. “ Then I believe with that incident, the bearing continued to heat up because the motor was still on and actively turning. That ignited the dust inside the collection unit after it heated up enough. That created an explosion that blew out the top of the chimney portion of it.” 

(Local Town) Officer and Fire Investigator  said upon investigating the scene, he discovered parts of the bearing lying alongside the dust-collecting unit.

Water is sprayed from a deck canon from a fire engine as firefighters with the (town name ) Department of Public Safety work to extinguish a fire at diecast company) in Greenville on Wednesday evening.

“That bearing actually connects through the housing to a baffle that turns and that baffle draws the air through a pipe,” he said. “The motor was still rotating. It was still in operation when we were on the scene extinguishing the fire. There was a lot of vibration because the bearing had failed. There’s a power breaker at the dust collector and I was able to shut that down to get the machine to stop.” 

(Interim Director) added that the external dust collecting unit is used to draw out dust from inside the building when products are being made within (diecasting company), which produces aluminum wheels. 

“The dust, I think it’s a mixture of some kind of metals,” he said. “There is aluminum product that they deal with, so I would say it’s probably a mixture.” 

(North America Die Casting Company Vice President) confirmed with the (news media) that no employees were injured in the incident. 

“All employees are safe and were evacuated from the building in accordance with our emergency procedures,” he said. “The fire occurred in an exhaust fan on the outside of the facility and was quickly contained and extinguished. Thank you to the local fire department and law enforcement for their fast response and with everyone’s help we were able to safely resume production later in the shift.”

Assisting at the scene was the (nearby) Fire Department, which Interim Director said was called to assist for use of its aerial truck.

“Depending on the information from (local) County Central Dispatch, we make the determination if mutual aid is automatically needed at that point,” he said. “In this case, we called only for (nearby community fire department’s) ladder truck, as we were rolling with fire personnel and fire apparatus immediately. It’s important to call for aerial apparatus immediately in order to get them in the proper position.

“Because of the fact it’s a large building and knowing it’s a foundry, we called for an additional arial apparatus immediately,” he said. 

(Interim Director) added that the department’s own ariel apparatus, Truck 4, was temporarily out of service as it is undergoing “routine hydraulic maintenance.” 

Also assisting at the scene were county EMS and County Central Dispatch. 

We are ecstatic no one was injured in this fire. We hope that the diecasting company can get up and running as soon as possible.

We do one to make on point clear. The fire that was fought was a roof fire that was ignited by hot (ignited) aluminium dust. This was not a dust fire per se. We wanted to clarify this because the fire department used water to put out the fire. As we have repeatedly stated that dust fires need to be extinguished with Class D fire.extinguishing agent and not water. Why? Because water can propel the dust into a cloud. Whereas the dust will flash fire (if not restricted) or explode (if restricted).

It appears that this diecasting facility has had a dust related fire once every few years. We hope this facility will revive this incident while comparing past incidents and see if there is any correlation.

 

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