Unexpected day off work tomorrow and maybe longer.

At 3:20pm today I was in the lunchroom taking a break when someone yelled over the P.A. system "FIRE ON #3 LINE! WE HAVE A FIRE ON #3 LINE! SHIFT SUPERVISOR TO #3 LINE IMMEDIATELY! WE HAVE AN OVEN FIRE!" It's protocol to announce any fire three times over the PA system to get people into action and this one sure did. A major fire erupted out of the #3 egg carton dryer oven which is about the size of a freight trailer and about 100 or so feet long.It is used to dry the egg cartons that are produced from recycled paper stock. The shift supervisor upon seeing how big and how fast the fire started ordered everyone on the production floor and even the downstairs shipping and warehouse area not actively involved in attempting to fight the fire into the fire safe-zones we have designated. A few guys were busy emptying 20 lb. dry chemical extinguishers into the oven while myself and another fellow were manning the 200 pounder while another crew was attempting to put the foam unit into action. It was then that the supervisor ordered ALL of us to vacate the area and await instructions from the fire dept chief that was just arriving. He ordered a complete evacuation of the entire plant including the office area at the opposite end of the plant. In all there were at least four fire departments that responded to the fire. No one was allowed back into the plant to even collect belongings. Word has it that the shift has been cancelled for tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night at least. Perhaps I will go back on Wednesday unless told otherwise. Thankfully nobody got hurt but a couple of us sucked in a little too much smoke and dry chemical powder but are doing OK now. (cough cough hack) Man, that is the second fire at work I have seen that was of major concern with this being the worst a lot of people have seen in years. No word yet on what caused it but I am sure we will find out in a day or two.A day or two of lost income is better than lives lost that's for sure.The one good thing about the company I work for is that they try and give people work even when things slow down even if it is just cleaning up the machines and such. Looks like there may be a fair bit of that over the next few days.

No, but it sure does put a damper in meeting our obligations to provide 115 million cartons to our customers.That was our sales figures for that one product for the year as of a month or two ago.It may be higher than that by now.

Cajun Invader said:

Oh, and to cheer you up a bit, did you know that you can make a fire truck out of egg cartons?

Egg Carton Firetruck

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That's just plain REALLY bad irony right there.

KingCobra_CDX882 said:

Was good those in the company were so quick to take needed actions..

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When you work in a place that makes molded paper products of all kinds from recycled paper you are constantly aware of what fire can do to your livelyhood or even your life. We all have basic training in what to do in the event of a fire while others choose to go that step beyond and get training in either emergency first aid, fire fighting or join the ERT which is the Emergency Response Team. Their job covers emergency first aid as well as extracation in the event someone actually becomes entangled in any on the machines. Thankfully that has never happened since I have been there but a few people have lost some fingers in the past. I am happy just dealing with emergency first aid and fire.

Well it was back to work yesterday and all was up and running except for the #3 line which is not expected to be back into operation until at least the weekend. The fire dept had to cut holes in the roof of the building to get at the flames above the dryer and there are burned wires and motors everywhere. One roof vent which is motor driven actually had the aluminum housing and blades melted where it was drawing the flames up thru it.I spent part of my day helping the construction crew on the roof cut the burnt area away and prepare for the steel roofing that was to arrive in the afternoon. After noon I was assigned to a differant job of processing and filling an order that the office had specifically asked for me to do so no more fun in the sun outdoors. (Sometimes it's a pain being dependable). Well things were going good but people were still a little jumpy I guess and then I found out how jumpy.The welders had forgotten to turn off the automatic fire detection and suppression system when they went to do a job.The fire detectors are small electronic eyes that look into the drying ovens and if they see bright light a series of events starts to happen rather quickly.First the fire alarm goes off which everyone usually reacts calmly too but not yesterday. At the same time the alarm goes off the water spray turns on and douses everything as it comes out of the dryers which soaks everything and causes the machine attendent to dump the belts into a cull chute.If he/she does not do that they are faced with wet soggy articles that will jam up and make a hell of a mess for them.Also at the same time the machines actually making the product at the other end,or wet end, of the line automatically dump their belts with product on it to prevent feeding anything into a potential fire inside the dryers.Also when all this happens the PA systems get quite active with the security guard house,which monitors the alarm system, starts calling the supervisor wanting to know if the fire is real or otherwise. Like I said, a lot happens fast. Well it happend not once but twice to us yesterday. The first time it was not so bad as it affected only one machine for a minute or two and it was all over. Just a nuisance but people were still jumpy from the huge fire the day or so before. Later in the afternoon it happened again but affected #4 and #5 lines. Both top and bottom belts on both machines were in chaos. Not a good day for a trainee to be on but he was.To make matters worse the auto dump feature on #4 did not work and we had a HUGE mess in nothing flat.Apparently there were still a few things affected by the fire that were not repaired yet. :headbang I ran from my location to the top of #4 to help the attendant but it was a nightmare.After itr was determined to be a false alarm AGAIN the jumpiness began to turn to frustration.After we got things back to normal I spied a welder walking towards me with his gloves in one hand and welding helmet in the other. I yelled "Hey Steve, take that thing and get the hell out of here and stop causing trouble will you!" :tongue: All he said was "Don't worry. I'm going home now that I have caused enough trouble." At the end of the day we had a laugh about what happened but it was not funny at the time. I think people are now back to normal as far as being jumpy when the alarm goes off so maybe two false alarms in one day is what was really needed in the long run.