Two fires prompt power plant alterations

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

wo fires in the central heating plant March 7 and 9 have resulted in alterations to part of the plant's exhaust-cleaning system, according to Physical Plant director Patrick Daly. Between clean-up and preventative measures, the episodes cost about $30,000, he said.

     An operating engineer who inhaled soot was treated and released on Sunday, Daly said.

     Both fires occurred in the bag house of the plant, where soot in the exhaust from burning coal is filtered out using long fiberglass bags. Daly said the soot is so fine that it clogs the filters, necessitating pulses of air to shake it loose into hoppers that then feed into a silo. On its way through, it can get packed much like espresso-ground coffee and requires being poked through various ports to break it loose and send it on its way.

     The fires were caused by soot and 500-degree embers falling outside the designated exhaust conduit when the pulses of air forced a port open, spewing the waste products into an area where clean bags were being stored. By Sunday's fire, the bags had been removed, but burning ash blew into the room when a second port burst open after another air pulse.

     The air pulses are routine, happening roughly five times per day, Daly said, and PVC pipes in the ports, which had replaced corroded steel pipes, had been in place for several years without incident.

     "They were separate and distinct fires, but the cause of both fires was found to be the same," said Lindsay Stromgren, assistant fire chief in the Amherst Fire Department. "After [Sunday's] fire, we made it clear that we didn't want it to go back on line" until changes had been made, he said.

     "There wasn't a lot of damage, we had some melted wires and we lost some spare bags," Daly said. "But we did have the repairs and we had to have a clean-up."

     In addition to clean-up and repairs, Physical Plant removed the PVC replacements and returned the ports to their original steel pipe configuration. Daly said the steel pipes tend to corrode in about five or six years and would need to be replaced; however, the campus is slated to have a new central heating plant on line in 2006.