A Smouldering Ash Pile Beside The Site Compound

Returning to the site compound after a site walk near Douglas West Wind Farm, our Coyle Group safety officer could smell burning. He followed the smell into the neighbouring yard and found it coming from a smouldering pile of wood ash.

The site compound sits alongside a large yard used by several companies, and one of them had built up a stockpile of wood ash. In the weather conditions at the time the pile had started to re-ignite, and the heat had already grown fierce enough to char an adjacent stack of pallets. To our officer that was a real threat, both from the fire itself and from the effect of heat, smoke and fumes on the people nearby.

The danger did not come from our own compound, but from what was happening next door. The neighbouring company had left its ash stockpile where changing weather could re-ignite it, and close enough that the heat was already reaching the pallets stacked beside it.

Left alone much longer, that heat had every chance of setting the pallets alight and putting both people and the wind farm compound in the path of a fire.

Our safety officer took immediate action. The owners of the neighbouring yard were contacted out of hours, told what was happening and asked to deal with it straight away. They began tackling the pile with a loading shovel, spreading the ash so it could cool. As soon as the pile was disturbed, oxygen reached the embers and flames shot out of the ash.

A water tanker was brought in while the loader kept spreading the pile to let the heat disperse, and the ash was kept damp for a few days until the smouldering stopped. This is the kind of alertness that sits at the heart of our safety consulting work. The yard owners committed to keeping future ash under stricter control, in a safe area well away from the compound.