Old fire a likely cause

A fire at a local mill Tuesday night was likely caused by sparks from a previous fire, a mill manager confirmed Wednesday morning.

AbitibiBowater general manager Doug Murray said crews are still on scene at the mill exposing some hotspots buried by bulldozers after a fire Tuesday. Murray said crews would probably be there all day Wednesday.

"It’s going to take us a little while, I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess of how long that’s going to take," Murray said.

A similar but smaller fire happened at the mill three weeks ago, started from spontaneous combustion in a bark pile.

"We were digging that out," Murray said. "Potentially last night a spark from a little hotspot maybe from the fire from three weeks ago with that huge wind last night just started to spread across the top of the pile."

If the bark pile is not packed tightly, it can start to generate internal heat that can lead to spontaneous combustion once oxygen gets in Murray said. While fires on the piles aren’t uncommon, the size of Tuesday’s fire and the smoke that blanketed parts of the city’s South side is he added.

"We apologize to the city of Thunder Bay for that," said Murray.

The fire did not affect operations at the mill. Murray said more flare-ups might happen while crews expose hotspots.

"Hopefully nothing will get carried away like it did last night," he said.

The mill has been burning bark to create steam since 1976. Murray said AbitibiBowater will take preventative measures to make sure the piles are packed correctly.