Fire breaks out at St Mary’s cement, USA
The fire department was called to the blaze at St Marys Cement’s Bowmanville plant on Thursday, July 22 around 9 a.m when a fire broke out on top of a 200ft silo.
Fire Chief Gordon Weir said it was not a big fire, but the height of the structure was challenging.
There are no water hookups at the top of the silo to extinguish the fire. Firefighters had to haul numerous extinguishers up the elevator and carry them from one silo across the catwalk to the other silo to battle the flames.
Eventually, firefighters brought the fire hose up and lowered the end down to the aerial truck to hook up to the water supply. That water was used to put out the spot fires and cool down the hot limestone rock that had been processed and was being moved along the conveyor belt when the fire broke out.
It took firefighters approximately two hours to extinguish the fire.
Chief Weir said the company will have to replace the conveyor belt on the southwest silo and estimated the damage was $50,000.
Published under Cement News
