One person was injured and an investigation is underway following a fire at FortisBC’s LNG plant expansion in Tilbury Saturday morning.
Just after 10:20 a.m. FortisBC was notified of the fire at the expansion site where the plant is currently undergoing commissioning.
FortisBC crews responded along with Delta firefighters and Delta police.
“Contractors conducting the commissioning reported a brief ignition from a refrigerant line, which was extinguished shortly thereafter,” said FortisBC in a media statement. “Fire detection and suppression equipment on site was activated and functioned as designed, containing the incident. Emergency response procedures were also activated and worked as planned.”
FortisBC said one member of the contractor team on site was treated for injuries and released.
Delta fire Chief Dan Copeland said firefighters arrived on scene in under nine minutes. At the height of the call, there were 23 members on scene, along with several pieces of apparatus.
“It appears they were going through a start-up procedure on one of the tanks to cool the propane and it would appear, we are still investigating, but it would appear that they had a valve failure, which caused an explosion and fire,” said Copeland. “Our crews went in and went through a procedure of closing off any of the valves that were still open and working with the staff on site.
“The first in crews did an excellent job, first off identifying where the issue was and then getting in and mitigating as well, so they did a great job. Their fire suppression systems, as far as we know, worked as they were supposed to as well.”
FortisBC said the incident was limited to the refrigerant portion of the plant and did not pose a danger to anyone outside the plant.
“FortisBC looks forward to conducting this investigation with its contractor to ensure we understand the cause,” continued the statement, adding that operations at the original Tilbury plant, which has been in operation since 1971, were not impacted.
WorkSafeBC is also investigating.
