Thread: Esperance harbour fire

get anything hot enough and it will burn.....

Must have been a really huge fire. You could see it from.....nowhere!

Hey Jamo
From the wireless reports its smouldering away.
How does a metal ore smoulder?????
Andrew

Dunno! I'm not good at fires, that's why I put in split systems at home

Where's Craig when you need him!

Depends what is in the ore, and what they use to extract it.

Collie coal has HUGE problems with spontaneous combustion during transport and storage because it has a small particle size, high volatile organics and high water content.

this from the shipping press

A tanker was ordered to leave the port of Esperance yesterday as fire crews dealt with a smouldering pile of nickel sulphide concentrate initially thought by locals to be a fire.

The concentrate was in the port's Black Swan storage shed but Western Australian transport minister Simon O'Brien said the volume was small and there were no flames.

The concentrate is known to combust if moisture content is not maintained.

Mr O'Brien said there had been no direct threat to the health of Esperance residents.

Operations at the port were suspended and the 46,176 dwt chemical/oil carrier STX Ace 6 was sent out to sea as a precaution.

The port has now re-opened and the vessel has returned to port.

Esperance Port Authority was unable to be contacted for comment.

cheers
yorkie

Any sulphide ore or concentrate can burn under the right conditions. It's the sulphur that burns, not the metal in the ore or concentrate. Spontaneous combustion can be triggered by high concentrations of sulphur or sulphide oxidising rapidly. I've never heard of it happening in a nickel concentrate before, but it's not uncommon for freshly blasted faces underground to spontaneously combust shortly after blasting, when high concentrations of sulphur are first exposed to air. Material containing very fine particles is usually more prone to spontaneous combustion, because of the greater surface area exposed to oxygen.

Lead sulphide is also well known for this - used to live near a gold mine in the NT which had pockets of very high concentration PbS where the freshly blasted faces often burst into flames. They used to just let it burn, as the ferocity of the fire soon consumed all the available oxygen and the fire would go out pretty quickly - and with the depletion of oxygen, it was too dangerous for anyone to attempt to fight the fire anyway.

Ok, locked us out of the port so could not shunt down the iron ore. It was all blown out of proportion. While it was a fire, it was more of a smouldering fire (no flame only smoke). Being in Nickel for so long I have seen this heaps. The nickel does not catch fire as such and is not a chemical reaction as such either. What does cause it is high moisture content combined with warm concentrate from the processing or drying process. If it contains moisture over 12%, which is the limit it can be transported at the heat in the concentrate combined with the moisture can cause it to heat up to a point where it will combust and then of course being a sulphide (which has a sulphur content without being pure sulphur) will smoulder. The main issue with this type of fire is smoke. Generally there are only a couple of ways to put a smoulder fire like this out : You can deluge it with water or cover it with foam, but this creates a slurry and it may cause an environmental issue if not on a repulping or reclaiming pad or pit. In a large stockpile you need to contain the contaminated smouldering nickel by moving and spreading with a loader. Often this will be enough to put it out or you may have to smother it with more nickel after backblading to a thin layer and then covering with more dry concentrate (care needs to be taken it is dry) or covering with fire fighting dry earth.
The only issue with using any type of media is it may then not be saleable as it has become contaminated. OK on a mine site where it can be retreated, but not so good in a port shed when it is to be shipped. Very fortuanate that it did not happen on a ship.
At this point not sure wether it was XStratas or BHPs. There was also a diesel tanker berthed close by that had to be returned to sea mooring asap. The evacuation procedures at the port are absolutelly poor and they need to improve their game dramatically as I have told some of them before in the capacity of an ESC with our product going out through the port (past tense).
Geez I miss my job as an ESC Oh well lucky to have a job at the moment I suppose.
Anyway I hope that has explained it a bit.