Simultaneous Tragedy: Fire at Evergreen Packaging

A CSB safety video about the September 21, 2020, hot work incident at the Evergreen Packaging Paper Mill in Canton, North Carolina. A fire erupted in a confined space when a heat gun fell into a bucket of flammable resin killing two contract workers.

[brettbarden]

I am a chemical engineer who works in a manufacturing plant with PSM-governed processes. These videos are incredibly educational (much more so than written policies and procedures). Studying these videos has actually resulted in identification of hazards in our plant and improvement to process/equipment designs. PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRODUCE THESE VIDEOS!!! These videos save lives

[MPKampersand]

One of the most awful things about these situations is that anyone who's ever worked a low-level job doing almost anything recognizes this exact type of corner cutting as something that happens all the time. "It'll be fine, we just need to get this job done, no point bothering the higher-ups..." so on and so forth.

[Christopher_TG]

It's always a bitter sweet moment when these videos are posted. On the one hand, they are exceptionally well made with with fantastic narration and fantastic animation. On the other hand, each of these videos represents a tragic accident that could and should have been prevented.

[kevinlopez]

I am an EHS manager at a power plant. Anytime these videos are released I show them during our Safety Meetings. They are an incredible resource that generate a lot of discussion with our employees. Please continue these videos as they have tremendous value to all industry. My condolences to all involved and the families of those lost. Hopefully, the lessons learned and shared in this video will save others lives. Thank you USCSB.

[ericlaw]

Glad I watched this video. My company currently defines hot work as work producing a flame or spark as well, which is essentially the OSHA definition. We probably wouldn't have identified this as hot work. I think we'll change the definition to "work that is capable of producing heat in excess of the flash points of the combustible objects within the work area" or something to that effect.

[Kumquat_Lord]

As much as I love these videos, it is never a good day when they need to be made.

[jojomakes]

This is probably a dumb comment, but I live in NYC, and I really take for granted how the things I use on a daily basis get to me in the first place. Production plant workers, farm workers, factory workers, etc. they do so much dangerous, yet vital work but we only see the end product in the store. We have no idea what actually went into creating it. I don't personally know a single person who's ever done industrial or agricultural work. Living in a huge city, I'm so far removed from it that it's not something I ever even think about. Thank you and God bless everyone who works these kinda jobs. You deserve way more appreciation and acknowledgement than you get 💙

[johndoyle]

Thanks, I worked in the Chemical industry all my life, I hated hot work and confined space permits, .If i signed a permit, I would always attend personally, and not relax until everyone was out safely.Contractors were always a worry, and multiple contractors operating at the same time just increased the need for more supervision.
I could not live with myself if I caused an accident. Fortunately, I never had a serious accident. Now safely retired.

[MikeinAustin]

I work in the field of Pulp and Paper and I hate to see these videos related to my industry. But like others, am happy for the service CSB provides. The written report at the CSB site from last year is excellent and highly recommended.

I was not surprised that the repair of the linings of these two connected bleach towers was contracted to two different companies (very likely competitors). They were in a cold outage and usually they are trying to minimize the down time on this long process of repair. The types of lining repair were similar but different. Two tasks rarely perceived as being flammable.

The Rimcor employees (Brett Burgueno, Curtis Butler) were on a special type of scaffolding that brought the platform up over 200' off the base, very close to the crossover, and the platform could take a very long time to lower. When they realized there was smoke or fire, I suspect they could not have gotten down quick enough.

The negligence of simple proper handling of the heat gun that allowed it to ignite a 5 gallon bucket of resin is maybe the worst to me. Absolutely no reason to have the heat gun inside of the confined area.

It would be easy to forgive the workers for not realizing the Fibre reinforced plastic lining was flammable but that is also their expertise.

Hopefully the entire industry and safety management at mills are aware of these sorts of dangers and all mills are following the advice of OSHA.

[AbsolutelyCriminal]

Blastco sounds like a place cartoon characters would buy their explosives.

[skylinefever]

Before I got a job, my father said "Never enter a confined space for any reason unless fully trained. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." I didn't know exactly what he meant, but I heeded his warning.
Anyone here, no matter what your boss tells you, if a safety code is being violated, never obey, and feel free to raise hell in any form if being ordered to do so. You are fighting for your life, and you must treat the situation as such.

My grandfather was a safety officer at Sun oil. He tolerated no violations and was very successful. Everyone called him "Safety Mac" and he won an award for his success. He was called "Safest one in '81." He also knew where employees would hide their weed stashes and paraphernalia. He would show the marijuana paraphernalia to my mom to show that she would never get away with smoking the stuff.

He passed before I entered the auto repair business. I am sure if he observed the improperly maintained and repaired automotive lifts, he would be as harsh as as he was around his oil workers.

[SoupGod]

I feel bad when I'm excited to see a new video, but I really appreciate the information.

[strikersemperfi]

I was there that night, working as an E/I supervisor on the board machine. I remember hearing people screaming for an electrician over the radio to come kill power. We knew something bad had happened. One of my employees was a member of the rescue squad and pulled the bodies out after the fire was put out. It was tragic. He is still bothered by that memory. Safety takes hard work. It takes dedication to information gathering and then action. Rest In Peace.

[stony]

Tragedy that could have been easily avoided. Rest in peace to the workers and condolences to their families. These videos and the quality of them are such an important learning tool and information that is easily digestible/possibly applicable to many people. Sad, but good videos. Great quality.

[SergeantExtreme]

It should also be pointed out that FRP does not _have_ to be flammable. There is ASTM certified fire resistant FRP, but as you can imagine, this is much more expensive than the non-fire resistant FRP.

[FerroequinologistofColorado]

These videos are so informative and so well done with the animations and explanations. Another well done video USCSB!

[muenstercheese]

It must be expensive to produce such consistently high-quality content. I really hope companies work on their safety to make you guys make fewer videos!

[rawbacon]

Spent a few years of my life working with torches and welders everyday, hazards are everywhere and fire spreads unbelievably fast. I had a guy from the company we we working for watching with a fire extinguisher while I was welding, flip up my helmet and see something burning below me (I was on a scaffold) look over the guy's got his back turned while he's chit-chatting with someone. Of course I proceeded to yell at him "Hey, hey put that out!". No big deal that day but you can see how easily it could have been.

[trainer]

This video is pretty sad. Railways have been successfully dealing with this kind of thing for decades.

Like confined space work, track work requires a permit/authority. You receive limits you are allowed to work in and a time frame.

However, with track work like that, if there are any other workers who are working in your limits you are required to talk to them. It's called a confliction (instead of a SIMOP, same premise though), and before you can begin any work you are required to talk to the other group(s) and resolve your confliction.

Just because you can see the other workers doesn't mean you can't affect them. Whoever did the risk assessment on the pipe and decided it's 2 seperate entities should really be retrained.

[Sami_WTF]

Conflicting feelings when USCSB uploads. Happy, since I get to learn from high quality, well made videos, and sad as a tragedy had to have occurred for the video to have been made.