Two Dead In Dust Explosion At BC Sawmill - On Top Of Beetle Kill, Another Blow To Logging Industry

[hatrack]

EDIT

Investigators have been looking into the possibility that elevated dust levels arising from the cutting of dry, pine beetle-ravaged wood could have been a factor in the explosion of the Babine Forest Products mill in Burns Lake last January. Two workers died.

Monday night, the Lakeland Mills in Prince George exploded in a similar fireball, killing one employee and sending others to hospital with serious burns.

At the time of the Burns Lake explosion, those with many years experience in the woods industry said they could not recall a similar incident, where a mill basically blew up in a fireball. Now there have been two such explosions .

Although there are no immediate answers about the cause of the explosion at Lakeland Mills or at the Babine Lake mill, Ms. MacDiarmid said she is not prepared to wait for the investigators to reach their conclusions - a process that could take several more months. “That will take some time we know, but there is a common factor here, we are all aware of it: It’s sawdust,” she told reporters in Victoria.

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-government-orders-top-to-bottom-inspection-at-sawmills/article2412865/

[arikara]

1. Both could have been caused by the bug kill pine they were milling

When the pine beetle attacks the tree, it reacts by producing sap at the injury site. The dead pine trees are very dry and full of this dried sap or pitch, a very combustible combination. Both sawmills were milling these bug killed pine trees where they used to be milling normal wood.

I didn't realize before just how explosive things like sawdust were. This is so unfortunate for both communities already hurt by badly mismanaged forest practices.