The day after a series of chemical explosions at a plant in Sawmills, a state representative said state and local officials should closely examine what appeared to touch off the explosions: flammable dust in the company's warehouse.
Wayne Goodwin, D-Richmond, drove to Sawmills from Raleigh on Thursday and spent about an hour talking with neighbors and the owner and employees of STAT Inc., where a 55-gallon drum of lacquer dust exploded Thursday morning.
The fire set off explosions in 50 other drums, shooting a fireball and smoke more than 100 feet high and forcing about 120 people to evacuate the area for most of the day. Three STAT employees suffered minor injuries.
Goodwin, chairman of the N.C. House Occupational and Health Safety Committee, said he worries that the state doesn't adequately oversee companies that produce or work with large amounts of dust, which can ignite easily even if it's not the residue of a flammable substance.
"There needs to be some study or input on how do you contain a natural byproduct like dust so that our businesses and employees can be safe and businesses can continue to operate," Goodwin said Friday. "I'm afraid somebody's asleep at the switch on the state level."
The substance that started the chain of explosions was lacquer dust, a byproduct of furniture finishing. STAT disposed of the dust for 15 area furniture companies, and workers were preparing to treat it Thursday when, owner Garry Sparks said, it spontaneously exploded.
Goodwin noted the steel girders that had held up the metal STAT warehouse. The explosion and fire "not only bent the steel, it warped it," he said. "Thank goodness no one was killed, but someone easily could have been."
The N.C. Department of Labor requires industries to adequately ventilate and store dust and keep it away from flammable chemicals and ignition sources. STAT said it followed proper procedures in handling it.
The Labor Department, county Fire Marshal's Office and Sawmills Fire Department continued to investigate the explosions Friday. Sparks and Fire Marshal Dale Coffey said they've never seen dust ignite without an apparent ignition source, such as a flame or spark.
But even the most seemingly safe dust can ignite easily, experts say. The sheer number of particles provides a large surface for fire to break out; because dust particles are tiny, the fire creates a flash that burns out almost instantaneously. Witnesses at STAT described the first drum exploding exactly that way.
Dust fires are hardly rare in North Carolina. The West Pharmaceuticals disaster in Kinston last year, which killed six, happened when a cloud of plastic dust caught fire. Explosions and fires are fairly common in granaries in the eastern part of the state, where dust from grain can catch fire, said Chrystal Bartlett, spokeswoman for the N.C. Division of Waste Management.
But such fires still need an ignition source, no matter how small. The lacquer dust at STAT may have been contaminated by vapors from evaporating liquid lacquer overlooked in the dust or some other "self-heating contaminant," said Ron Hopkins, an associate professor of fire and safety engineering technology at Eastern Kentucky University.
"Because this is waste, you don't know how the dust was cleaned out of filters or off of surfaces or otherwise handled," Hopkins said. "Any time you have dust, there's always potential for ignition."
