Explosion in Fremont
- Thread starter Charlie Marlow
- Start date
It was the old Golden Sun Feed plant. I didn't know that it was up and running again which was a good thing. Too bad about the explosion. Video looked terrible
They were making wood pellets for a few things including smoker grills. Years before that they processed feed there. I know a lot of the ag people on this page know all about grain dust. That's gotta be the cause of this. In an old building like that, old and newer dust alike could have been a cause. I was told once that even just a hot surface can ignite a cloud of potentially explosive dust.
And the aftermath is worse . One employee and two young girls under 12 waiting for that employee were all killed.
Sounds like they’ve had housekeeping issues with wood dust in the past. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that excessive wood dust combined with high temperatures from operating a hammer mill led to this tragedy. I’m sure it being a super hot day didn’t help things out either.
The video of the explosion is pretty incredible. Like, BOOM. Elevator dust explosions are all too common, I wouldn't want to work near one.
I don't know anything about wood dust but I do know about grain dust which under the right conditions, would have same results. Takes dust and air in the right mixture and a spark. Sometimes dirtier is better and a lot of explosions happen in cleaner facilities that have the right mixture.
Terrible situation for the family and situation
OSHA report out- tons of combustible wood dust everywhere and no precautions taken to keep their equipment from running too hot. Sounds like a place run on the cheap with no regard for employee safety.
And that's one of the issues where I say that government rules and regulations are important. Best to have occasional safety inspections than to have things like this happen. As time goes on people get complacent. Knowledgeable veteran staff retires. Some don't even get replaced.
Your last sentence is spot on on staff . Also the problem is they replace people with someone who is just looking for a paycheck and probably doesn’t fully understand the total concept of what they are working with .
Plant manager should be criminally prosecuted for negligence
Nah, safety is for chumps and weaklings. We support people that DON’T blow up.
A few administrations ago they tripled OSHA staffing. It did nothing besides punish the legit companies. Legit companies comply to things, or pay fines. The non licensed cheap (often illegal) companies do not. They send a different crew out the next day working under a new company name. I’m usually against big bro looking over shoulders, but if you want to risk running an operation like Fremont, at the very least the employees should know the standards they aren’t meeting in the workplace
This is the issue 95% of the time. Good labor isn’t cheap, and cheap labor isn’t good.
I might be totally wrong but I thought the owner/plant manager was on site and killed...along with his kids or step kids who were waiting for him in the kitchen/break room. Very tragic
I spent my career doing concrete and steel, docks, dams, even as a connector with structrural steel at 23.
As the years went on, the regulations increased, and we often chafed over OSHA regs. Most are there for a reason, and minor violations usually were resolved with a conversation and training.
Like them or not, OSHA really does save lives, and their protocols are usually not that onerous. What I did in 1983 would not be allowed now, but safety was still a primary concern.
These industrial accidents can usually be attributed to simply not following basic protocol.
I think almost everyone that has worked in an factory/industry type setting has realized how few of the OSHA rules are actually followed.
I did golf course maintenance years ago and we had the OSHA signs up but we sure as hell did not bother following them. Some of the stuff, looking back on it, was so stupid too. Like, we were idiots.
We often had a pre-site inspection/walk through with OSHA before a job began. This was a way for the companies to both show desire for compliance, and a very effective way of mitigating future fines on subsequent visits.
Rest assured, we all broke OSHA rules everyday, but the constant safety meetings and training helped keep safety always in your mind.
I did have my partner fall off a roof in Keystone in 1982, died a grisly death as a T shaped fence post went through his head. I was 22. It was terrible. We had just founded the company and purchased our first Workers Comp just 6 weeks previous. Dave lived in a coma for 5 weeks in a Denver Hospital. OSHA did investigate. The company disbanded and I went back to school at CSU.
100% chance that 463 will now blame you for that guys death! Ha
The very nature of their product makes having wood dust “everywhere” seem virtually unavoidable. Undoubtedly AFTER the explosion there was a huge amount of dust everywhere. Other than greasing bearings I’m not sure what precautions they would take from equipment getting hot. Bearings fail unexpectedly in my farm equipment sometimes a matter of hours after a new one is installed. Had a mower conditioner bearing catch on fire less than 5 acres after the CaseIH dealer installed. Sometimes xxxx happens and people get hurt or killed.
C'mon Dingle, I am but a drug addled dumb construction guy, but even I know dust of anykind is explosive, and organic dust moreso.
Not sure how a mower bearing or any bearing has any relevance here?? The fact there was an explosion was due to a combustive mix of organic dust. Had the problems, dust, been mitigated, no hot bearing would have any effect, but to shut down production until it was fixed. Any spark can trigger these things, why there are OSHA regs !
Exactly!!!! I have a buddy who manages a grain elevator and he dedicates 2 out 4 employees EVERYDAY to sweeping and blowing down dust.
I regularly deal with grain dust. I understand the potential problems. People usually do the best they can. You can’t predict a new bearing deciding to fail or a grease seal from blowing out. I just take a government wonk assigning blame with a grain of salt. Sometimes accidents do happen.
Exactly. ANY SPARK. Nail in a piece of wood being processed. Bearing failing for no apparent reason. Etc. Stuff happens. It isn’t always something somebody did wrong. I don’t care how much you try to clean, the nature of the processing has potential to cause a problem.
Pal i worked in the business Put up grain bins and legs and put automated feed mills in commercial feed yds . Worked in many old head houses like this one .a bearing falling off or hot equipment is not going to cause an explosion like this unless there are layers and i mean layers of Dust on rafters and all around.
The owner could very well be. There is a long history at that place.
Very well put. Couldn’t have said it any better. You find out that a lot of those regulations aren’t asking for companies to do anything more than what most are doing anyway. And there’s a reason for that.