 A plume of smoke rises over a dump fire at Con Mine Sunday. - Jorge Barrera/NNSL photo |
Yellowknife (Aug 15/01) - A dump fire at Miramar Con Mine covered parts of the city in smoke Sunday afternoon.
The fire had apparently been smouldering for five days after firefighters initially believed they had extinguished it. There were no injuries.
According to a news release from the fire department, the fire began late Aug. 8, shortly after 11 p.m., when workers were disposing of quicklime in the mine dump.
The material was in large plastic bags, said mine manager John Stard, but during disposal, it became exposed to water, causing a chemical reaction that produced enough heat to ignite garbage nearby.
Stard said hazardous materials were not involved, and that most of the garbage consisted of wood, metal and a few tires.
The fire department responded to douse the blaze with water and allow mine workers to cover the burning section with dirt. By 6:30 a.m., the following morning, it appeared the fire had been extinguished and the burnt area sufficiently covered with dirt.
But on Sunday, at 3:39 p.m., the fire department received another call that the remaining section of the dump was now on fire. Firefighters responded and extinguished the blaze by 10:16 p.m. that evening.
Quicklime is a material that does not normally require disposal, said Stard. Usually, the mine would use up its quicklime in the milling process, but in this case, about six to 10 tonnes of quicklime were dumped because it was clumped up and mixed with rocks.
