During a Port Authority meeting Wednesday, Port Director Wayne Stubbs provided an update on the incident, in which a conveyor belt caught fire while loading wood pellets from the Green Circle Bio Energy warehouse onto a shiploader.
Stubbs said the port has had two similar incidents in the past, none of which, like Monday’s fire, resulted in any injuries or major damage.
However, the fire did damage the shiploader, equipment owned and operated by SSA Marine, the company contracted by
“In this case, it’s not our equipment that caught fire,” Stubbs said. “It is a challenge for them to recover from that, but they’re doing pretty well so far.”
Because the ships are relatively small with open hatches, the company is managing to load them by repositioning the ship. Stubbs said operations should only suffer about a one day delay as a result of the fire.
“From our perspective, we shouldn’t see much of an impact when it comes to tonnage and revenue and so forth,” he said. “So far, we don’t have to anticipate any shortfalls in revenue.”
Port Authority members recognized Wednesday that the incident could have been a lot worse. The facility saw $2.5 million in damage from a fire at the wood pellet warehouse in 2012.
In the six months it took to repair the warehouse, the port had another fire on a barge where the pellets were being stored as an alternative.
Following the warehouse fire, the Port Authority spent about $600,000 on additional fire protection for the facility, including heat sensors, upgraded smoke detectors, a diesel fire pump, smoke hatches and slower conveyor belts.
SSA Marine was not available to comment on the incident Wednesday evening.
