The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has a new safety video about the fatal incident at the Evergreen Packaging paper mill in Canton, NC.
The video includes an animation of the events leading up to the incident along with interviews of CSB board members.
On September 21, 2020, a fire erupted in a confined space at the paper mill after a heat gun fell into a bucket of flammable resin that was being used in a maintenance project.
Two contract employees working on the project were killed in the fire.
This new video notes that the CSB identified four safety issues that led to the incident at Evergreen Packaging:
- hot work safety
- pre-job planning
- confined space safety, and
- combustible materials of vessel construction.
The CSB found the incident was caused by the failure of the contract company, Blastco, to effectively evaluate flammable material hazards presented by its maintenance work in the confined space of the mill’s upflow tower.
Blastco also failed to recognize use of heat guns as a form of hot work that could ignite flammable materials.
The CSB recommended Blastco:
- update its hot work policy and employee training program to identify use of heat guns as hot work
- develop formalized troubleshooting guides or standard operating procedures for use of resin and fiberglass matting in certain operations, and
- develop a policy and standard operating procedures for proper use of heat guns.
