Two Firemen Burned In Blow-back At Factory

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30369, 19 February 1964, Page 16

Two Firemen Burned In Blow-back At Factory

Two firemen were burned, one seriously, when a small fire in sawdust in the boiler-house of a Riccarton factory blew back yesterday afternoon.

The blast of flames flung one of the firemen out of the boiler-house, 40ft high, on to a landing about 36ft from the ground. He knocked the other fireman off the landing, and both fell to the roof of a building 12ft below.

The firemen are: Senior Station Officer David Mardon, of the Sydenham Fire Station, who suffered severe burns to the face, neck, hands, ‘ arms, and legs; and

Fireman M. Porteous, of the Headquarters Fire Station, who was severely burned on the hands and arms.

Both men were taken to the Burwood Hospital by a St. John ambulance. Their condition last evening was reported to be fairly comfortable. The fire broke out in sawdust, dust, and shavings in the boiler-house of the plywood- division of Fletcher Industries, Ltd., in Mandeville road.

The fire alarm, an automatic signal, sounded at 4.6 p.m., and firemen from the Headquarters and Sydenham stations answered the call on two machines. The first arrived within five minutes of the alarm. The boiler-house is 40ft high, of corrugated asbestos on a steel structure, and contains two 152 h.p. .boilers. The boilers are fired by sawdust and wood shavings fed into the furnaces through dutch ovens from a hopper at the top of the building. When the firemen arrived the works engineer (Mr A. Collett) was hosing the fire near the roof of the building from the inside, and fitters had connected a hose to a fire hydrant at the foot of the boiler-house and were on the roof of an adjoining building, 24ft high. The firemen put their own nozzle on the 2fin hose, and Senior Station Officer Mardon and Fireman Porteous took the hose up a steel 12ft ladder- attached to the wall of the bolier-house leading to an opening 3ft square, just below the roof of the boilerhouse. Senior Station Officer Mar-

don went into the boilerhouse and sprayed water on the fire. Fireman Porteous was on the landing just outside the opening. The fire in the disturbed dust blew back with a terrific explosion that 'forced some of the corrugated sheets from the wall, and flames shot out through the wall opening. Senior Station Officer Mardon was blown back through the opening in the blast of flames. He knocked Fireman Porteous off the landing, and both fell 'in the sheet of flame.

Half-way up the ladder, Fireman M. Fraser tried to grab the falling Fireman Porteous. Below him, Station Officer S. Barnett, caught at Senior Station Officer Mardon. Fireman Porteous, Senior Station Officer Mardon, and Station Officer Barnett crashed down on to the roof of the adjoining building. Fireman Fraser managed to hold on to the ladder. The ambulance was called at 4.20 p.m., and arrived within seven minutes. Workmen manned a forklift truck, piling the lift with plywood frames and placing a stretcher on top. The burned firemen were lowered on the stretcher, separately, by the forklift truck, placed in the ambulance, and taken to hospital. The firemen dealt with the fire, which just smouldered after the initial blow-back, and very soon had it out. ■ “It is the first fire we have had in the boiler-house

STATION OFFICER MARDON

since 1958,”' Mr Collett said. “It was a very abrupt explosion—the firemen had no chance. It is. very sad.” The fordman of the log yard at. the factory (Mr B. Flood) was on the roof and helped to break Fireman Porteous’s fall. “Those firemen are the gamest blokes I have seen for many a year,” he commented. The senior station officer was badly burned, but conscious. He was still worrying about the fire and wanted the sprinkler system to be turned off as he was taken off the roof into the ambulance-”