More fires in Juken mill machine

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FIREFIGHTERS have been called to the Juken New Zealand mill in Macdonald Road twice in the past

24 hours to help deal with fires in a plywood processing machine.

The third call in five days brought three appliances from Fire and Emergency NZ to the mill just before 11am yesterday to assist the plant’s industrial brigade. Again, just on midnight last night, two appliances responded.

“The processing machine has a steam drenching system in it that kicked in and helped contain the fire on both those most recent occasions,” said Senior Station Officer Bernie Bull.

“There does not appear to have been much damage.”

The daytime call yesterday tied up the city fire crews for about two hours, and overnight they were there for close to three hours.

“Last night it was the same machine and the same problem.

“The crews left the steam system on until the temperature in the machine dropped right away, then they opened

it up to put out any remaining hot spots.”

On both recent occasions the fire was contained to the processing machine.

SSO Bull said mill staff inspected the interior of the machine to check for any internal damage.

“The cause was not definitive at this stage.

“We suspect it was started by wood chips in the machine that overheated and caught fire.”

City fire crews were called to the mill on Friday after a small fire started in a dust extraction system.

“That fire also caused minimal damage but on all three occasions production would have been affected.”