Greater Nashua
Federal report says firefighting tactics at Maine lumber mill explosion aided the blast
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Firefighters who responded to a fire at a Maine lumber mill used tactics that inadvertently contributed to a massive explosion that killed three people, according to a report from federal investigators. The fire companies tried to extinguish the May 15 fire inside a silo at the Robbins Lumber mill in rural Searsmont, Maine, by injecting it with water — unaware of warnings from the manufacturer that doing so would be dangerous. The silo then blasted skyward like a rocket as flames and a shock wave from the explosion hurled workers and firefighters away. The firefighters didn’t know, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health wrote this month, that the silo was oxygen-limiting, a type of sealed structure that can become pressurized with combustible gases during a fire. That kind of buildup is a known hazard in oxygen-limited silos, ...
