P.G. Pulp Mill Getting Chips In Line

Tuesday, November 30, 1999 12:00 AM

Prince George, B.C. - Canfor's P.G. Pulp Mill that was hit by a fire last month, is making preparations to start feeding the chip digester with unscreened chips.

(at right, the conveyor in flames on January 15th, submitted photo)

The chip conveyor sustained considerable damage when a fire ripped through the chip area on January 15th.

Human Resources Manager Dave Scott says the digester will start receiving unscreened chips on the 26th of this month. He says the lack of screening may cause some production issues, but the mill is prepared for that.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, and the damage estimate is still being tallied.

The January fire was not the first in the chip area of the mill. There have been smaller incidents in the past, some were sparked by burned out bearings.

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Posted on Tuesday, November 30, 1999 12:00 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Eagleone on February 8 2008 1:11 AM

I heard the workers at the mill were sleeping and the sprinklers were not working, which is why the thing got so far out of control. Looks like a costly break down in maintenance and operations. A choke point with ripple effects throughout the forest industry via wood chip consumption and throughflow, thus a good reason to be thorough with any investigation.

Posted by: Jimmi on February 8 2008 8:11 AM

that is rally bad rumour to try to start. shame on you

Posted by: metalman on February 8 2008 9:58 AM

I agree, no need to spread dirt.
Let's stand behind our local people.
The good news is that they are rebuilding and an insurance co. is paying for the repairs as well as lost production costs.
There will be local jobs for people involved in the repairs, and no mill jobs lost as a result of the fire. So focus on the positive side of things please.
mtealman.

Posted by: lostfaith on February 8 2008 10:51 AM

Burned out bearings. Lack of, and or poor maintenance.
Sleeping wouldn't surprise me.
I've worked around the pulp mills here for years and have seen it personally.

Posted by: Eagleone on February 8 2008 5:50 PM

Jimmi it is not a rummour. I got it first hand from the guy that called in the fire. He couldn't reach anyone at the pulp mill on their own fire report line and had to call 911 who in turn could not contact the mill that it was on fire. The sprinklers were not working is also another fact. It may well have been a bearing that started the whole thing, but clearly they had a break down in procedure for dealing with these kinds of things.

On the negative side of things you have PG Pulp no longer taking wood chips, which in turn means 2-hour line ups at Northwood and Intercon, which in turn means schedules can not be kept to haul chips from the saw mills, which in turn means saw mills are now burning loads of chips to the beehive burners at $7800 a b-train load (5-6 loads a shift in some cases and they are not compensated for this like the pulp mill may be) at a time when wood chips are the only profitable thing the saw mills are producing.

Sure it may have no negative effect for the pulp mill workers that were sleeping on the job and not greesing their bearings, but when a saw mill worker looses his job because of the knock on effects of wood chip deliveries it has a huge negative effect.

Posted by: metalman on February 9 2008 2:30 PM

Okay, I received an update from someone in the know, and have been informed that the insurance company (FM Global) is invetigating this fire very carefully (of course) and that the questions as to who pays for what have not been resolved. In plain language, the insurance co. is trying very hard as they always do, to not have to pay out for the loss. So I stand corrected, yet again.
metalman.