Where There Is Fire – There Is Smoke

This afternoon, while chatting with Mark the CNC Programmer in his office at the back of the plant, one of the machine operators poked his head in and said, “I’m not sure what maintenance is up to, but there is a bunch of smoke coming out of the neighboring department.” Mark and the Turned Parts Supervisor, Marty, jumped up, grabbing safety glasses and followed saying, “Let’s go see what’s happening.” I followed them out the door and sure enough, to the right, the old Die Casting Department space was full of smoke. They headed towards it, but me, believing discretion is the better part of valor, turned left and came back up to my office. As I walked away, I was passed by a couple of our maintenance guys carrying fire extinguishers going towards the smoke filled department.

When I returned to my cube I told my neighbors to keep their coats handy as the fire alarm might go off any minute now. Being veterans of the previous plant fire they also gathered up car keys and lunch boxes in case it did go off and we weren’t let back in like last time. No alarm came. But after about five minutes a female voice came over the plant intercom saying, “There is no fire, but with all the smoke everyone please leave the building.” My wife called from her end of the front office and told me to meet her at the front door with her coat. I asked her why, was that an official notification for everyone to leave the building or just those who could see the smoke? We could even smell it up here. I went to give her coat figuring a little break from the afternoon might be nice. She wasn’t at the front door, but standing outside the Accounting Manager’s office chatting with her. When I got there Kaye asked me some computer question and we agued on where our new user name was used and where the old one was still valid while watching a small crowd gather on the front lawn. A fellow from maintenance, with the full powers vested in him by his walkie-talkie, instructed us that everyone was to leave the building. So we went to join the others.

We then spent about 20 minutes on the front grass watching the cars go by and wondering what the heck happened. The office types got to go back in first because we where the farthest away from the smoke. The hourly folks had to wait about another 20 minutes or so because it took them a while to get most of the smoke out of the plant.

It was a fire in one of the HVAC ducts in the old Die Casting Department. It was extinguished in a couple of minutes causing minimal damage, but boy did it fill the back end of the building up with white smoke.