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Learning from close calls: NB mill takes action after two fires
June 18, 2018 - Preventing wood dust fires is always a challenge for any company in the forestry industry. You might think you have everything under control or say, ‘We aren't that bad,’ but the truth is, the risk is always there and we must remain vigilant in order to minimize the risk of fires from wood dust.
June 18, 2018 By Christian Fournier
The piece of wood that was recovered from the planer fire. At Fornebu Lumber in New Brunswick, we had two fires on Friday, June 1, 2018. The first one occurred in the planer. A piece of wood became jammed which cause friction in the planer and caught on fire. The planer operator cleaned the planer during the lunch break.
[This article is part of our 2018 Dust Safety Week coverage. Find more articles here.]
The second fire occurred when the fire from the planer was transferred by the blower to the dust collector outside the planer mill. We were very fortunate that our employees acted quickly to extinguish both fires.
We discovered during the fire fighting that the fire hydrant hadn’t been reactivated from the winter. So, it took longer to extinguish the fire. We were lucky that we happened to have an AWP at the planer mill at the time to help with the second fire.
The piece of wood that was recovered from the planer fire.
After our incident investigation, we had a few action items in order to prevent the fires to re-occur.
- A preventive maintenance (PM) work order was created to do a major cleaning of the planer on a monthly basis.
- A PM work order was created to clean the platform at the base of cyclone using an AWP. It was never cleaned since the platform was not safe to stand on.
- A work order was created for the yard labours to re-activate the rest of the fire hydrants on site.
- A project is in the works to obtain a new dust collector.
As you can see, we were lucky things didn’t get worse. I hope by sharing our incident it helps other sawmills to improve their wood dust programs.
Christian Fournier has worked in the safety profession for more than 10 years. He is currently safety and training co-ordinator for Fornebu Lumber in New Brunswick as well as a first responder instructor trainer for Saint John Ambulance. Christian is also a member of CSSE (Canadian Society of Safety Engineering) and a director on the board of the New Brunswick chapter. christian.Fournier@fornebulumber.com
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