"While performing ...maintenance work, a fire occurred"

Every workplace in our industry has one or more dust collectors. Most of the time these dust collectors are an afterthought. Until an incident occurs. The importance of training local fire departments on your workplace’s unique hazards is highlighted in this incident.

A chemical fire broke out at Thursday afternoon at a production facility in (USA). The fire happened at 2:55 p.m. at (aluminium powder manufacturing company), resulting in damage to the collection system. While performing routine cleaning and maintenance work, a fire occurred, according to a news release sent out by Ampal. No one was injured as a result of the fire and all employees were safely evacuated and accounted for, the release states. The company placed a call to the 911 center reporting the fire, emergency personnel responded quickly to the facility and continued to remain on the scene, according to the release. The fire is being allowed to burn until no visible flame or smoke are present, the release states. A full investigation will be conducted by plant management, according to the release. “I am extremely grateful no one was injured and all our safety systems functioned properly,” said president, of the aluminium powder manufacturer. “I want to thank our dedicated employees who performed admirably. I also wish to thank our local emergency responders.” 

We are ecstatic that no one was injured in this fire. The responding fire department was either trained previously or instructed by the aluminium powder manufacturer. Regardless, they chose correctly to allow the fire to die out because of the unique circumstances. We acknowledge there every dust collector is different. There are some that require extinguishment. While there are others can be allowed to burn out.

Lastly, it is important that dust collectors be installed outside your workplace. Additionally, dust collectors need to be fenced off. Why? For reasons beyond belief we have seen countless time workers stand near dust collectors. We are not sure if it is because of the breeze. But, from short breaks to eating lunch we have told our hosts, workers should be instructed not to stand nor loiter around dust collectors. We have reported on this blog of dust collectors exploding injuring nearby workers. These incidents would not have occurred if workers were prevented from loitering around the base of dust collectors.

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