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A midcoast fire official says that first responders were not expecting a silo to explode during a fire at the Robbins Lumber mill in Searsmont last week.
Northport Assistant Fire Chief Henry Lang said he hopes the dozens of state and federal investigators who have been at the mill this week will give firefighters information they can use to make sure another catastrophe like the lumber mill fire and explosion doesn’t happen again.
Lang wants to know exactly what set off the blast and whether it was caused by oxygen suddenly being introduced into a low oxygen environment such as a smoldering fire.
Lang said he has been trained on handling engulfment — when fire and intense heat surround an object from all sides — but not specifically silo fires.
“That’s certainly a bigger question than we would normally deal with,” he said.
Lang said there was little warning before the silo blew up.
“That’s tough for everybody,” the assistant chief said. “We’re doing a job that’s inherently dangerous and we find now that we’re in a situation that doesn’t meet what we’ve been taught to expect.”
Lang said that when he arrived at Robbins Lumber, it was a scene of chaos.
“We were trying to round everything up and figure out what we needed to do next,” he said.
A silo containing sawdust had blown up around two hours before he arrived. He could see in the aftermath that firefighters were “very emotionally jarred” after scrambling to rescue their fellow first responders, he said.
“They were pretty heavily impacted by seeing people that they know on fire and turning the hose on their comrades,” he said. “That’s pretty tough.”
Firefighters from Lincolnville pulled many first responders from the flames after the explosion, said Patrick Scribner, Morrill’s former fire chief.
Firefighters quickly went from fighting the fire to providing medical care to their fellow first responders, said Colby Robbins, Belfast’s assistant emergency medical services chief for the city’s fire and ambulance department. Belfast sent 16 firefighters to the scene, none of whom were injured, he said.
Eight firefighters from the Northport Volunteer Fire Department responded to the fire, Lang said. Katherine Paige, who was a firefighter for Northport and Belmont, was critically injured and is being treated at MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Portland.
