The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Day shift at Coleman Mine was cancelled Friday and about 100 night-shift employees were locked down for several hours after a small fire early Friday morning at the mine in Levack.
Vale spokeswoman Amanda Eady said the company’s fire emergency system was activated at 3:42 a.m. when a small, 3.5-yard scoop tram caught fire on the 4,810-foot level of the mine.
Production and maintenance workers on the job were alerted about the fire with the release of stench, said Eady. Stench is a strong warning gas that smells like onions and rotten eggs. That was the signal for workers to report to refuge stations where all were soon accounted for, said Eady.
Vale’s mine rescue team was dispatched, and ensured the fire was out and the area was properly ventilated before the all-clear was given and night-shift employees returned to surface shortly after 10 a.m.
Those employees were not to return to work Friday night because there wouldn’t have been time for them to rest before their next shift, said Eady.
Operations were to resume with the day shift on Saturday.
A man working underground at Coleman Mine when the scoop tram caught fire said it was “weird” because workers on the Thursday night shift had just gone through a fire drill five or six hours before the real thing.
The mobile mechanic, who did not wish his name to be used, said he reported for night work about 7 p.m. and the fire drill was called at 8:30 p.m., although he didn’t know it was a drill at the time.
Workers were notified then by the release of stench gas to report to refuge stations.
When the second shot of stench gas went out in the mine hours later, the mechanic said he wasn’t sure what to think.
But he again reported to a refuge station, as did others working early Friday morning.
When he heard it was a scoop tram at the 4,810-level, he said he knew it was one of two of the machines on that level he had been working on.
Eady said Vale will conduct an internal investigation into the cause of the fire and said it isn’t common for scoop trams to catch fire. The mechanic said there was another small fire with a scoop tram last week when oily rags under the equipment’s exhaust pipe ignited. The incident wasn’t reported, he said.
The tram that burned Friday was in the narrow vein of the mine where the mechanic often works.
While he agreed it isn’t common for scoops to catch fire, “when it happens, it happens fast.”
The area can turn into “a gas chamber” and “you’d better find somewhere to hide like a refuge station quick because the whole mine turns into a smoke show.”
Four or more years ago, when he was working at South Mine, another scoop caught fire when a tire overheated and ignited inside, he said.
“Those things operate at crazy temperatures because of the narrow vein all the time. “We always have problems with scoops down there running at high temperatures. It’s the engines,” he said.
If they are shut down when the engines get too hot, “it shouldn’t cause fires,” he said.
The fire drill and the reaction to the real fire “seemed to go good,” said the mechanic.
Eady said Vale commended Coleman employees for doing “an excellent job of following the fire procedures. That just reassures that safety is on the top” of their list, she said.