Despite the fire department’s best efforts to contain the blaze, the Fire Chief said they need more manpower and equipment to manage it completely, since “It’s a large fire, and the problem is the saw dust and the slabs are about 30-foot deep” . [Quote from WBBJ].
The fire has destroyed machinery and timber products, and the company owner has estimated the fire’s damage at over a million dollars. However, without some help from the weather this fire doesn’t look like it will be put out soon. The Madison County Fire Marshal explained that “Due to the amount of combustibles and the amount of fire that has taken place, [it] doesn’t appear that we’re going to be able to put it out”, but that rain over the weekend helped to extinguish some of the flames [Quote from WBBJ].
While this company is lucky that the combustion occurred outside, where there could be no containment to create an explosion from the combustible saw dust, it is still an issue that needs to be addressed in the future. A business should not allow such large piles of a combustible element to accumulate, even when it is sawdust and it is outside. This has caused a fire that is too large for the local fire department to extinguish, and has only been brought under control by rain. Luckily no one was injured and it was able to be contained to just the timber company, but this was the second saw dust fire this company has experienced recently. Hopefully they will put a dust management procedure in place once they have recovered from this fire.
Without proper housekeeping in place for the future this timber company will continue to have problems with their saw dust, which can be highly combustible under the right conditions. This issue is why OSHA’s Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program lists Sawmills and Planing Mills as an industry with a high combustible dust risk.
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