Steel Mills

No Serious Injuries from Explosion at Dofasco Stress Relieving Furnace

September 30, 2020

An explosion at ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s Machine Shop complex on Thursday afternoon destroyed a stress relieving furnace near the welding shop. The explosion was heard by the neighboring areas, but there was no offsite impact or serious injuries to Dofasco team members, the company said.

Said spokesperson Marie Verdun in a statement to SMU:

“We experienced an explosion (without fire) in our Machine Shop complex on Depew Street (north of Beach Road) on Sept. 29 at approximately 4:30 p.m. The incident occurred near our welding shop in an area where we have two stress relieving furnaces. The furnaces are used to relieve stresses in materials generated during repair (from machining, welding or heat processing, for example). Our on-site fire and medical teams responded to the incident.

“The Ministry of Labour was also on site today to inspect the area. One employee required first aid due to an impact to hearing, but is back at work today. Thankfully there were no other injuries.

“The noise from the incident would have been audible to neighbouring areas, although there was no other offsite impact. There is no impact to overall business continuity.

“We are relieved there were no serious injuries to our colleagues or offsite impact as a result of the incident. We are also thankful to the employees in the area and our internal fire and medical first responders for their expertise and quick action.

“Our teams will continue our root cause analysis to ensure that the risk of an event like this is mitigated and it never happens again.”