Molten metal explosions occur for a myriad of reasons. Most commonly they occur when moisture comes into contact with molten metal on a bare substrate (e.g., steel, concrete, stainless steel). Here is a recent incident highlight the hazards associated with molten metal explosions.
City fire chief described one night in September 2024 incident at an aluminum plant as a steam flash more so than a fire and definitely not an explosion.
City fire chief said that the three people injured during an early evening commercial incident at aluminum (company) had been pouring molten aluminum into a container encased with a water jacket when molten metal overflowed, causing a steam flash that burned the trio.
He estimated that the molten aluminum temperature was around 800 degrees.
(Aluminium company) offers its aluminum extrusions for windows, doors, solar technology, displays and chalkboards, to name a few uses.
Two of the injured men were transported by ambulance to St. Elizabeth’s main campus, while a third was taken via air ambulance to burn center (100 km away) due to the severity of some of his burns.
City fire chief had no updated information in regards to their condition.
According to news partner (tv station), the incident happened in one section of the building where four people were working. There were 15 total employees present in the building at the time.
In addition to local fire station, another nearby (10 km away) fire department also responded to the call.
City fire chief said none of the victims appeared to have life threatening injuries.
The department ultimately used 300 gallons of water to put out a small fire near the area that had ignited skids and packaging materials, he added.
Crews had all utilities shut off the building, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was supposed to show up to the scene Friday.
By 1:30 a.m., firefighters had cleared the scene, City fire chief concluded.
We pray that the injured workers recover fully from their injuries. They were lucky, any incident that requires a helicopter to fly the injured to a specialized hospital is a bad incident.
Sadly, we have learned of numerous workers who succumbed to their injuries after a fatality because of blood clots. We pray that this injured worker does not have any complications and recovers fully.
We have reached out to the company and have not heard back from them. We pray that they respond to our message. This is an assumption (which we must say), but we feel that this explosion was because of a lack of awareness and education to molten metal safety.
This is our industry's best practices toward safety when handling/process molten aluminium. It can be found here.
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