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Windmill Generator Fires
Just wondering if anyone has had any experience in dealing with emergency situations concerning windmills generators specifically fires. We have had a large number of windmills erected in our area over the past couple of years with more to come; one of my guys came across a few pictures of these windmills going up in flames. My first thoughts regarding the best approach would be to stand back a safe distance and protect and surrounding structures and prevent the fire from spreading. With the danger of High Voltage and the possibility of having one or all of the blades falling or the tower coming down, based on the height and span of the blades we would need to keep all equipment personnel and public at a very safe distance from the base of the tower I would think that this would be at least 800 to 1000 feet from the base ? Has anyone responded to one of these fires? Or has anyone trained on how to approach one of these fires
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sandro Kwestro on
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In my station they had a fire like this a couple of years ago. I wasn't a firefighter back then, but if I have to believe the guys: never go in and just let it burn.
Just secure the surrounding area, so no one gets to close. Its not worth taking the risk.
To get inside the mill en get up there it takes quite a lot of air out of your air-pack and you probably won't have enough air to get back (its a tough job). The inside is pitchblack and because of the thick smoke it's a very high risk to even try get up there.
Our ladders and servicing platforms doesn't go as high as 40 meters, and nowadays the newest windmills on land in suburban areas are as high as 60 - 80 meters (195 - 260 feet).
Over here we're trained to just (try to) control them from the outside. The old ones we can handle out of the servicing platforms, because most of them are about 40 meters.
And this is just the height in our area. In other areas of the Netherlands the height varies from 100 till 200 meters (325 - 655 feet).
A farmer here in my village, who owns 2 of those mills, told me that financially it's not an option to insert a sprinkler-system into it. The system would be to expensive and even when it works it leaves him with more financial damage than when it totally burns out. This is because of the high tech system which are up there and would be damaged by the water.
Hope this will give you enough to work with.
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Permalink Reply by mike clark on
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First of all, I have no experience in fighting fire in these types of structures. However, after reading "Sandro's response," the structures height and lack of safe internal access make conventional firefighting impossible. My opinion, isolate the power connection from the burning device to the rest of the grid, maintain a collapse zone isolating all personnel and let the fire burn itself out. Stay safe and God Bless America!
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