DSS119: Remembering the 1916 Quaker Oats Explosion in Peterborough, Ontario - Part 1

Combustible dust has been an occupational hazard for centuries. Workers in a variety of industries have gone to work in highly dangerous environments and never come home. Some dust fires and explosions have been so significant that entire communities were affected.

Today’s episode examines the 1916 Quaker Oats Explosion in Peterborough. Although we normally discuss more technical topics on the podcast, we can’t forget the human side of the combustible dust tragedies. We want workers to know that they matter, and improving process safety should never be off the radar.

Why is It Important to Remember Disasters Like This?

There are two reasons.

The first is that dust explosions in grain and food processing facilities are not a new challenge. They’ve been around for a long time. If someone hears about combustible dust for the first time, they often assume that it’s a modern workplace hazard, which is untrue.

The Quaker Oats Explosion levelled an entire facility 105 years ago. Factors that could have prevented it are still relevant today, such as:

Keeping fugitive dust levels down
Dust prevention and protection techniques
The whole hierarchy of controls.

A lot of those were being applied and talked about a hundred years ago. Our biggest challenge is not forgetting the lessons that we learned, which is one of the big reasons why we’re going through the history books and looking at incidents like this.

The other reason is that these types of explosions affected (and continue to affect) families, friends, communities and local economies.

With the Quaker Oats Explosion, 24 families lost loved ones. Workers who survived lost their jobs, which affected the entire city. The social and economic impacts of these incidents can last decades, and even lifetimes. We’ll talk about this a bit next week with Jane Gill, whose grandfather was seriously injured in the explosion.

Quaker Oats and the Explosion

The Quaker Oats facility was built on the Otonabee River in 1890. In 1901, when it transitioned from the American Cereal Company to Quaker Oats, it was the largest cereal manufacturer in the world.

The facility itself was a very large building. It had dozens of grain storage silos, grain processing areas, bagging areas. Equipment and accessories included material storage mills, presses, bag filling stations, bags, storage: all the typical things in a grain milling or grain pressing operation.

In 1916, Quaker Oats was extremely busy. It operated six days a week, three shifts a day. They had a strict fire safety program and took steps to control ignition. Smoking was not allowed in most parts of the building, and extinguishers and sprinklers were in place.

There are some excellent resources dedicated to the explosion. One is a video called “The Tragedy on the Otonabee.” It was put together by groups focused on understanding and learning from this incident – in particular, the Quaker Oats Fire Descendants Organizing Committee. Jane Gill, who is co-chairwoman, will appear on the podcast next week.

On December 11th 1916, one of the workers reported smelling burning grain in what was called the dry house. This appears to be an area where several silos contained drying material, so grain dust accumulation would have been everywhere. Shortly after the smell became noticeable, a large explosion occurred, destroying the northeast section of the plant.

This section immediately caught fire and eventually collapsed, destroying the boilers and water piping below. When this happened, it disarmed the sprinkler system throughout most of the facility and allowed the fires to go unabated, essentially destroying the facility.

Twenty-four people died and 500 lost their jobs weeks before Christmas. Many of the survivors were marked for life, physically and psychologically. One of them, William John Garvey, was trapped in a grain elevator, buried in grain up to his neck. He only survived because his fellow workers dug him out while the structure burned around them. Mr. Garvey suffered serious burns to his face and died two years later due to complications from his burn injuries.

This happens quite a bit in this type of large scale explosion – someone has major burn injuries that can lead to issues later, such as infection and, unfortunately, loss of life as well.

Garvey’s son was 10 at the time of the Quaker Oats explosion and his daughter (William’s granddaughter) is Jane Gill. Jane has shared the impact that the disaster had on her father, her family, and the community at large. One hundred and five years ago, it’s still being talked about, and that’s a good thing.

Conclusion

The Quaker Oats facility was rebuilt and still stands at the center of the economy in Peterborough, Ontario. In 2016, the community held an event to mark the 100th anniversary of the explosion. A monument was unveiled across the river, in Millennium Park. It contains the names of the 24 victims, to ensure that they are never forgotten. It is also a tragic reminder of the combustible dust risks in grain handling and other industries, and the impact that they can have.

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.