Date: May 12, 2019
Location: Jaffrey, New Hampshire
Address: 141 Old Sharon Road, 03452
Type: Dust Fire
Fuel: Wood Dust
Industry: Wood Pellet Production (Wood Products)
Equipment: Unknown
Company: New England Wood Pellet
Database Incidents: None Recorded
Loss: No Injuries
Capital Cost: Unknown
Status: Open
Confirmation: Unconfirmed
Company Description:
According to the company website, New England Wood Pellet is a wood pellet production company. It was founded in 1992 in Acton, Massachusetts, moved to New Hampshire in 1995; and built its flagship facility site in Jaffrey in 1999. In 2012, New England Wood Pellet upgraded its in-house quality testing labs for all of its manufacturing facilities.
Incident Description:
On May 13, 2019, the Ledger-Transcript reported a May 12 fire at wood pellet production facility in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.
Firefighters reached the scene shortly after 1:21 p.m. They found smoke inside a mill building and, due to the presence of sawdust and wood products, increased it to a second alarm to bring in additional help.
The Jaffrey Fire Chief said that the fire appeared to have been caused by a mechanical malfunction in a piece of machinery. Seeing flames around the motor and belt area, they disabled the machine and extinguished the fire after 45 minutes.
The Fire Chief said that there have been previous fires at the mill. The last one, which occurred about five years ago, led to stringent regulations for the facility, such as the installation of sprinkler systems and other safety guards.
None of these new safeguards were activated by the fire. When employees noticed it, they didn’t report it for around 15 minutes because they tried to extinguish the fire themselves.
“They should have pulled the fire alarm, the manual fire alarm when they first saw the fire,” the Fire Chief said. “No matter if it is at your house or a manufacturing facility like this, if there is fire or if there is smoke notify the fire department immediately.”
He added that the fire alarms will be assessed as well as the employee procedures for reporting fires and clearing away sawdust.
No injuries were reported.
Previous Incidents:
On October 23, 2011, Canadian Biomass Magazine reported a four-alarm fire at the New England Wood Pellet plant in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Over 100 firefighters responded to the incident, which occurred in the wood pellet cooling tower.
On March 13, 2013, Woodworking Network reported that OSHA cited New England Wood Pellet for multiple alleged combustible dust-related citations, four months after the company agreed to pay $100,000 to settle violations stemming from the October 2011 fire.
Sources:
Ledger-Transcript
Canadian Biomass Magazine
Woodworking Network
