"second-degree burns to his back, arms and legs..."

The hazards of charging a furnace are well known. The Aluminium Association’s Molten Metal Incident Reporting Program lists over 1000+ explosions reported in their program’s 40+ year history. Nevertheless, explosions still occur. Here is a recent incident highlighting the hazard of charging a furnace.

At around 23:11 last night (20rd), a fire broke out at an aluminum processing plant in East Asia, and it was extinguished in 40 minutes.

As a result of the fire, a man in his 60s who was working inside the factory suffered second-degree burns to his back, arms and legs and was taken to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital for treatment.

Fire authorities believe the fire started during the process of putting aluminum materials into the furnace and are investigating the exact cause of the fire.

We pray that the injured worker recovers fully from their burns. Another news media article had the fire department stating that the workplace was charging aluminium and believe magnesium was unknowingly in the charge. That would have created a belching fire. Looking at the forklift in the back of the one photo. It appears not to be enclosed, let alone if it had a windshield. A belching fire would have burned the operator, who we assume was the worker who was injured. The other answer to a question that is not known is was the worker wearing fire resistant clothing? We suspect not because of the nature of their burns. We hope that if the workplace did not require fire resistant clothing will after this incident.

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