Auto parts plant blast: Fire suppression, magnesium acted like a bomb
The explosion and a subsequent blast early the morning of
Firefighters called to the factory went to the maintenance room "and looked at the bottom of the scrap conveyor (where) we saw a white glow in the tunnel. We exited the plant at that time,"
The report, made public Monday, said the plant sustained an estimated
The factory has a history of safety citations since being acquired in
On
It was
"After the second explosion it was reported that there were two employees injured, one by debris that was ejected from the plant and the other employee was injured by the blast of the explosion at the south end of the plant by the scrap tunnel ... We did not try to extinguish any fires at the plant because of the molten mag in the area. The roof of the re-melt building caught fire and burned, there were three machines with two crucibles each with ten thousand pounds of molten mag in them."
An initial cause of the fire has not been determined.
"With the destruction that the second and third explosions caused, it was impossible to find what caused the first explosion," McNutt told the
"When you're adding little drips of water onto a magnesium fire, it's exploding and exploding, and all that liquid melting metal then gets onto combustible materials like wood, fabric, carpeting, walls. And then that would start on fire," Magda said.
The worker was thrown through the room because explosion causes a shock wave.
"That's how a bomb works," Magda said. "And this is very typical of magnesium. Once the magnesium is ignited, it explodes when water added to it. It's going to be a very dynamic incident. A very dangerous incident for firefighters and the surrounding community. They were lucky there were no fatalities."
"There were two 12-hour shifts to begin," Mickey said. "The wind that first Friday made some difficulties getting to some critical dies. We knew there was an urgency to retrieve the dies from the building so parts could be made elsewhere, but we still needed to proceed with safety in mind and we were able to balance those two."
The devastation was all-consuming as
"The power of the blast blew a large hole in the roof and back wall of the building, but also triggered every safety hatch on the roof of the building, and those had to be closed before some weather hit on Sunday and Monday," Mickey said. "It was a coordinated team effort."
"We didn't fight any fire up there. Everything happened too quick," he said. "The only thing we did is set the ladder truck up and look at the top of the building. If there's any mag fires, we don't fight them. We let people at the shop do it. But this was beyond their control. They simply evacuated."
Wu previously defended the company's safety record, noting that it has one of the better safety records in the die-casting industry.
"We always try to prevent accidents. In the manufacturing environment, accidents happen," he told the
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