"heading away from the aluminium smelter....."

Extreme weather events outside of our workplaces can affect safety inside our facilities. From floods, tornados, droughts, etc. Here is a recent incident that could have been worse if not for the direction of the wind.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand crews made good progress in clearing hotspots out of the burnt scrub and wetland on Tiwai Peninsula yesterday.

Fenz incident controller Hamish Angus said despite warmer conditions yesterday afternoon, firefighters had been able to hold down any potential flare-ups.

"As well as having four helicopters dousing the fireground from above, we’re using four excavators to widen firebreaks around the perimeter so the fire doesn’t spread if the wind gets up," he said.

"This work will also help firefighters if they need to deal with any more fires here in the future."

Fire crews were scheduled to work until 6pm yesterday and one crew would remain overnight to monitor the fireground.

"Our crews will be back on-site tomorrow [Saturday] morning to continue mopping up and ensuring there are no hotspots left," Mr Angus said yesterday.

"They’ve all worked incredibly hard over the last two days and done a great job at getting such a large vegetation fire under control."

The fire more than quadrupled in size on Thursday, but was heading away from the aluminium smelter.

The fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday morning and within six hours on Thursday had grown from covering an area of about 250ha of the Tiwai Point Conservation Reserve to 1200ha with a 18km perimeter, due to higher temperatures and wind speed.

Eight appliances and 10 helicopters were in attendance on Thursday.

Fenz assistant area commander and incident controller Bobby Lamont said the 2022 Awarua Wetlands fires had played a big part in the response.

Fenz volunteer and professional firefighters as well as Department of Conservation (Doc) crews have been deployed from Dunedin and the wider Southland region.

The firebreak protecting the Tiwai Smelter has also been strengthened, and the fire is moving away from the smelter thanks to a wind change.

No rainfall has been recorded in the Tiwai region for the past month.

There is no immediate indication of how and why the fire started, but fire investigators will be on the scene once it is safe.

New Zealand Aluminium Smelters external affairs director said there was no immediate danger to the smelter or staff and the plant remained in operation.

We post this incident as an example a workplace understanding the extreme weather events that could befall it. We commend Tiwai Smelter for being proactive in having a fire break in anticipation of such an event.

We have reported similar incidents where workers traveling to a smelter got caught in a grass/forest fire. They only survived as they sheltered in a nearby well as the flames rushed overhead. Their vehicles were destroyed. 

We hope the reader will consider what extreme weather events that can occur at their workplace(s) 

The Aluminium International Today magazine had a topic on this topic. It can be found here.

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