Pinnacle President on Explosion “It’s a hard day”
Burns Lake, B.C.- The President and COO of Pinnacle Pellet, Leroy Reitsma, has confirmed to 250News that three employees at the Burns Lake
-image courtesy Pinnacle Pellet
operation were injured in an explosion at that facility this morning.
“It’s a hard day” says Reitsma, “I can’t tell you how hard we focus on this issue of the safety of our employees and the cleanliness of our plants, you know whenever an event like this occurs it sends somewhat of a shockwave through all of us.”
Reitsma says the blast occurred in the area of the drying system around 8 this morning “We were actually at the time of the event, in a maintenance shut down.” He says two employees suffered minor burns and a third suffered more serious, but not critical, burns. The three have been transported to Lakes District Hospital in Burns Lake
There are 45 people employed directly at this facility spread out over 4 shifts but Reitsma says there would have been more than the normal shift crew on site today “On a day like today where we’re in a maintenance mode, we would have an enlarged crew there to perform the maintenance work.”
“WorkSafe BC is on its way to the site along with our investigation team and we’ve secured the area and we will be investigating this thoroughly” says Reitsma.
Comments
It’s a relief that no one was killed, but this has got to stop.
Lockout violation?
They need a union at that plant to protect their employee’s
Cheers
Leroy is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. I would take his words more sincerely than almost anyone.
Small fines for these companies does nothing to deter them from not complying with Work Safe. It is time to start shutting them down immediately when things are not in order for safety concerns that are not met. In other words put a lock on the gate until things are in order.
Looks to me that it had nothing to do with fine dust buildup. It was in the burner. Any number of things could cause it to explode. Excess leftover fuel in pipes, natural gas ,improper shut down, the list goes on.
Least likely is dust accumulation from not cleaning up. It is completely outside.
“Last June [2014] Ms. Bond promised to adopt 43 recommendations for changes to WorkSafeBC in the wake of two deadly sawmill explosions. The changes include more frequent inspections of forest products plants, tougher penalties and a more robust investigation team. ”
This is just another broken promise and failure. Shirley Bond, when retired, will leave a bloody trail of explosions, riots, injured and killed skilled workers. It is very embarrassing that PG keeps sending her as its MLA to Victria, despite her terrible performance in her previous ministerial position.
Interesting comments from the softchairs before knowing the cause, amazing.
Who said anything about what the cause was. Sometimes the truth hurts when comments are made.
Huh?
Burns Lake is a small community news travels fast seamutt! Contractor was improperly locked out! Now who’s fault is it? The contractor or the mill safety rep who showed how to pick out. Hmmmm!
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