At around 3:30 p.m., a fire broke out on a press located the 3rd floor of a pelletisation workshop of a starch factory. The fire alarm in the by-product sector went off in the guardhouse. Black smoke began coming out of the pellet press building. The firefighters were called and the internal emergency plan was implemented. Two workers tried to intervene on the upper floor. They were brought downstairs by firefighters who put SCBAs over their faces. The fire was contained at 5:00 p.m. and the internal emergency plan was lifted at 5:25 p.m.

A problem occurred on a press that was started up at 2:52 p.m. (turn-off/amperage drop). Its power supply was restarted by a technician at 3:28 p.m. One minute later, the temperature of the air exiting the cooling system’s filter rose. The three workers in the workshop noticed a burning smell and saw black smoke. The turned the presses off and evacuated the building.

The press was intact, but the pellets outside the dies were covered with soot. The heat from the burning filter bags damaged the metal portion of the cooling system. A nearby press also suffered some damage.

The amperage drop related to the turn-off caused the press’ feed screw to stop. The press was operating idle for seven minutes when the technician restarted the feed. This caused the die and roller assembly to heat up due to the lack of compression. According to the operator, incandescent particles may have migrated to the cooling system.

If a press malfunction ever occurs again, the operator will:

• shut off the motor of the turned-off press (< 150 A) after 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes;
• prohibit the press from being re-energised if it was turned off before its motor was stopped;
• lockout the press’ door and open it for inspection, cleaning, and cooling.

The operator also modified the process:

• at the dryer outfeed, the dry matter of the byproduct must be between 89–91% instead of 91–93%;
• steam is now fed into the mixer upstream of the press to achieve a target temperature of 60 °C.

The nearby presses were put back into operation the same day with these modifications. In the longer term, the operator plans to further modify the equipment and programming to facilitate pelletisation and have increased means for extinguishing potential cooling-system fires.

This site has already seen other fires (ARIA 47955, 45220, 45110 and 43186).