Three workers have been injured in an explosion and fire in Burns Lake.
The incident happened at the Pinnacle Wood Renewable Energy wood pellet plant at 8 a.m. this morning, the company's CEO, Leroy Reitsma, told Business in Vancouver. Reitsma described one of the workers as being injured "seriously" while the other two had minor injuries. He could not confirm whether the workers had been taken to hospital.
"We've notified WorkSafe and they and our inspection team are at our site right now," Reitsma said. He added that the fire resulting from the explosion had been quickly contained.
In May, WorkSafeBC fined Pinnacle $48,838 after an inspection of its Burns Lake facility found “hazardous accumulations” of wood dust. The inspection report notes that dust was found in direct contact with ignition sources and that the company had repeatedly been warned about the flammable material.
The same month, Pinnacle’s plants in Quesnel and Strathnaver were also fined $31,380 and $36,223, respectively, for allowing wood dust to accumulate despite repeated warnings from WorkSafeBC.
Reitsma said that like sawmills across the province, his company has been working with WorkSafeBC to implement a new dust management regime that was put in place after two deadly sawmill explosions in Burns Lake and Prince George. The explosions happened just months apart in 2012.
A WorkSafeBC investigation found those fires were caused by accumulations of wood dust, which can be explosive if exposed to an ignition source like a spark from a machine. However, Reitsma said that at the time of this accident, the facility was shut down for scheduled maintenance.
"Trying to get to the root cause of how an event like that occurs in a piece of equipment that is shut down is something that we're working through," Reitsma said.
WorkSafeBC spokesperson Trish Knight Chernecki said the agency is investigating Thursday's incident but had "no confirmation" that wood dust was the cause.
