Displaying items by tag: Fire

Austria: Four local fire brigades attended a fire at Lafarge Zement’s 1.2Mt/yr Mannersdorf plant in Lower Austria on 7 - 8 June 2020. ORF News has reported that the damage to the plant is extensive. A Lower Austria State Fire Service spokesperson said that none of the five employees on site when the fire broke out were harmed. The cause of the blaze remains unidentified.

US: A fire was successfully fought at Lehigh Cement’s 0.8Mt/yr integrated Tehachapi plant near Bakersfield, California on 8 December 2019. The Bakersfield Californian has reported that there were no injuries and no cause of the fire has been identified. Access difficulties exacerbated by extreme weather conditions caused fire crews to make two additional assistance calls.

UK: A fire broke out at Cemex’s 1.8Mt/yr integrated Rugby plant at 02:00 on 6 November 2019. BBC News has reported that operations were unaffected and none of the plant’s 180 employees injured by the fire, which was caused by a mechanical malfunction in a machine belt conveying raw materials. The fire spread over three floors of the plant’s preheater tower.

Argentina: Loma Negra says that a minor fire broke out at an auxiliary building for the second production line at the L'Amalí integrated cement plant on 1 August 2019. No casualties or injuries were reported in the incident. The subsidiary of Brazil’s InterCement said that the causes of the accident are yet to be determined but that no significant impacts are expected. The plant is currently being upgraded with a new production line that is scheduled for completion in early 2020.

US: A fire broke out in the preheater tower at Buzzi Unicem’s Stockertown cement plant in Pennsylvania on 7 June 2019. No staff injuries were reported at the plant, although a fireman required medical treatment, according to the Express-Times newspaper. Fire crews were on the site for around two hours.

US: Dragon Products’ Thomaston cement plant in Maine restarted production in early May 2019. A fire damaged the unit in late March 2019, according to the Penobscot Bay Pilot. Plant employees and contractors spent six weeks repairing and replacing building structures, conduit and wires, motors, gearboxes, bearings, material transport equipment and other equipment.

France: Cemex says that it will match the donations made by its employees to help restore the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. The donations will be handled by the Fondation du patrimoine (French Heritage Foundation), a private organisation dedicated to saving French cultural and natural heritage. The 800-year old cathedral was devastated by fire on 15 April 2019.

In addition, Cemex will help the reconstruction efforts through its range of technical and specialised products and services, the availability of its research and development centres based in Biel and Paris and assistance with material specifications and mix designs through its laboratory services.

US: A fire has damanged Dragon Products’ Thomaston cement plant in Maine. The incident took place on evening of 26 March 2019 following a spill of fuel oil, according to the Portland Press Herald newspaper. The blaze was stopped by firefighters as it started to enter a laboratory and control rooms. No employees were injured.

Plant manager Martin Turecky said that no customers would be affected by the fire and that it was continuing to distribute cement. He added that the cement grinding plant had not been affected. An investigation into how the fire started is underway.

US: A fire at Argos USA’s Martinsburg cement plant in West Virginia is being investigated. The fire followed an explosion at the site on 25 November 2018, according to the Herald-Mail newspaper. A spokesman for the cement producer said that the incident occurred in the coal-mill dust-collector bag house. Although damage estimates are not available yet, repairs following the fire include replacing blast doors. No injuries have been reported. Production at the plant has been suspended while the cause of the fire is investigated.

US: Rapid City Fire Department crews quickly extinguished a potentially dangerous fire inside a coal hopper at the GCC Dacotah Cement Plant on 21 November 2017.
The plant suffered little damage and no injuries were reported. According to fire department spokesman Jim Bussell, crews attended the plant at 07:40.

The first crew found dark smoke coming from inside a building containing the coal hopper. Due to the inherent volatility of coal dust, the firefighters made a careful entry into the building and quickly dealt with the fires. Bussell said that GCC Dacotah's comprehensive emergency response plan, implemented after a review by both the cement plant and fire department officials in mid 2016, helped to minimise the effects of the fire. "This open dialogue and communication was key to a safe, quick response and resolution of the incident," Bussell said in a release.

Bussell added that GCC Dacotah expected no disruption to plant operations because the fire was in a part of the plant that is in the middle of a US$90m expansion project.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.