Paige Desmond
No one was hurt after a fire and explosion rocked the Ontario Power Generation plant in Atikokan yesterday morning.
The explosion occurred around 10:30 a.m. after a fire started in the coal handling area of the plant, which is located near the roof.
The blaze, in turn, sparked an explosion that knocked some panels off the outside of the building.
OPG media relations spokesperson Ted Gruetzner confirmed the 40-50 employees on site at the time were safe, and credited emergency response personnel for a timely response.
“Nobody was hurt,” said Gruetzner. “The emergency response teams performed very well.”
Investigators are now on site trying to determine the cause of the fire, as well as the extent of the damage.
“I don’t know what happened,” Gruetzner said this morning.
Workers will not be called back for the time being as engineers and other investigators examine the building.
“I have no estimate on when the plant might be back in service,” Gruetzner noted.
Because the plant was not in operation at the time, Gruetzner said no interruption of power occurred as a result of the mishap.
According to the OPG’s website, the Atikokan plant “has one coal-fuelled generating unit with low nitrogen oxide burners that produces over 200 megawatts of electricity using low sulphur lignite coal from Western Canada.”
“Annual electricity production is typically in the range of 900 gigawatt-hours or 900 million kilowatt-hours, enough to supply about 70,000 households for a year,” it added.
The Atikokan generating station opened in 1985 and employs roughly 90 people, in addition to occasional contract workers.
