FIRE PREVENTION
Summer is here and the possibilities of a fire in your scrap feed stock and fluff piles go up substantially. No one wants to get that call in the middle of the night that your yard is on fire. Manage your operation to minimize risks at your shredder.
Some precautions to take:
- Keep your scrap piles at least twenty feed away from all processing equipment. Infeed conveyors, loaders, cranes, etc.
- Don’t accumulate large feed stock piles. Process it. If you are down for an extended period of time for maintenance, add fire break gaps to segregate large feed stock piles.
- Make sure your fire control systems are in place. Hoses and nozzles are in good condition. All fire extinguishers checked monthly. Discharged extinguishers moved to used tank area for refilling.
- Make sure there are no trash piles in the yard. Old pallets, Gaylord boxes etc. These all should be disposed of properly on a regular basis.
- Re-educate your inspectors to watch for hazardous materials which can start a fire. Batteries, gas tanks, propane bottles, all other flammable tanks.
- Make sure all shreds have been run off the conveyor belts and wet down the conveyors belts and area around the shredder. Especially over a long holiday weekend.
- Lastly, have a supervisor walk around the processing area to insure there are no hot spots. Make a person in each area also responsible to inspect the areas.
- Enforce after hours yard security. Security needs to make night rounds of process areas. Also, many fires are also intentionally set after hours by “unauthorized” visitors.
Have a safe production summer!!
