OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #518134
FIBREBOARD CORPORATION
ANTIOCH, CA·
Event description
Three employees die after boiler explosion
Investigation abstract
At approximately 6:00 p.m. on July 5, 1987, the operators of recovery boiler #3 at a pulp mill noticed a low level of water in the steam drum. For about 20 to 3 0 minutes, the feed water pump was inoperable, causing the boiler tubes to overh eat from lack of water. At approximately 7:00 p.m., after a flow back, Employee #1 activated the rapid drain system to drain water and release steam from the bo iler tubes. The rapid drain system failed, but the water supply to the boiler co ntinued. At approximately 8:20 p.m., water leaking into the smelt bed caused an explosion in recovery boiler #3. Employees #1 and #2 was killed instantly. Emplo yee #3 was burned and died after approximately three weeks in the hospital.
Victims (4)
-
#1 Fatality Age 46 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 9
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Fatality Age 46 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 9
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Fatality Age 59 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 9
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#981 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.