'Fireball' injures 19 in massive B.C. mill explosion, 2 missing

"It was a gas explosion," said Wilf Adam, of the Babine Lake First Nation. "The morning shift said that there was a big gas odour coming from the basement, and when the afternoon shift came on, that's when it happened."

Sounds negligent to me - I hope that is investigated. If you smell gas you don't just carry on as normal

Damn.

Perhaps someone was in the process of tracking down the odour. Sawmills don't usually stop running unless there is a verifiable emergency.

I could understand it if it was on the same shift - you don't just shut down because somebody smells something. But since the morning shift reported the smell, and the afternoon shift blew up, it sounds like they were being careless. Note also they said "big gas smell."

What I'm saying is that most sawmills don't shut down, not even at shift change. Although I'm just speculating, it's possible the morning shift smelled something and it was being tracked down even during shift change. It's also possible that nothing was done and employees were told to continue working. Despite their big talk about safety most mills I've worked in dont' want you to stop working unless the place burns down, which happened at my last job.

Exactly. I've worked in the woods, where the attitude (admittedly some years ago) was "if we kill a chokerman today, we can get a new one on the plane tomorrow." If there is a "big smell of gas" that does sound like something worth shutting down for.

I also worked briefly on the greenchain - worst job I ever had.

Never worked the greenchain, but worked the deck in a small shingle mill which was hard work, but not that bad, block piling in a shingle mill would easily equal the greenchain.

It wasn't that the work was that hard. I've worked a lot harder spacing trees or in the rigging. It's that you have to adapt yourself to the pace of the chain, not the other way around. And you're basically just standing there. Tree spacing was the hardest - up at 3 in the morning, your hands frozen into claws from the saw. But you got paid by the hectare, so it was up to you to set your own pace. And it required thinking about the best tree to leave - you had to be able to justify yourself to the forestry inspectors. You want to put the saw down for a minute and just look around - nobody to stop you. You're feeling your oats and want to fly at it - more money in your pocket.

As of this afternoon there are 11 still in hospital and they've located 2 sets of human remains.
Asides from the human tragedy, the loss of the mill is a complete disaster for the town of Burns Lake.

If you live in BC, you can donate to the victims of the disaster at any CIBC, to the Lakes District Tragedy Fund.