"A cold rolling mill had caught fire..."

 

We are confident that aluminium plants have enough fire extinguishers on hand per their local governmental regulations. But those regulations typically focus on area of building and not the specific hazards on the premises. Worse yet, aluminium plants assume that their local fire departments have enough fire extinguishing agents on hand to handle any size fire at their workplace. Here is a recent highlighting this important topic.

Thanks to the courageous and rapid intervention of the employees, a major fire at (aluminium plant) was prevented one day during the (July 2025).

A fire in the foundry of (company name omitted) in the municipality of (location omitted) demanded the deployment of 111 members of 13 fire brigades one morning. An employee was taken to the local hospital for further examinations with suspected smoke gas poisoning, the company announced. A cold rolling mill had caught fire, the flames were quickly extinguished.

The fire broke out on the rolling line shortly after 5:00 a.m. Employees took initial extinguishing measures and kept the fire under control until the arrival of the emergency services, the company stressed.

We pray for the injured worker that they recover fully.

We commend the workers at the plant for acting quickly. We do acknowledge the worker that was injured and no doubt the company will review if the worker was injured because they placed themselves in a hazardous situation instead of evacuating. 

We ask a simple question. What would have happened if the workplace did not have 34 fire extinguishers? Thirty-four fire extinguishers are the number we counted in the photo.

We assumed that the photo was of extinguishers after they had been used. That workplace was simply LUCKY.

They lacked the knowledge and awareness to know that they did not have enough quantity nor were they large enough in capacity. That is a common observation of ours on plant tours. Especially, new plants which never have enough fire extinguishers for the hazards present on their workplace.

Does your workplace have enough fire extinguishers and are they large enough capacity?

Please comment.