Canby Fire

This doesn't help the cause much: http://tinyurl.com/r466u

Hello, I own the facility that was involved in the fire mentioned in the Oregonian article posted above. I would like to take the time to answer some questions around the incident and direct your attention to the ongoing discussion on the biodiesel infopop forum. [url]http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=447609751&f=919605551&m=3621035251[/url] Q: What caused the fire? A: Electrical short inside the wall in our office. This wiring was over 30 years old and had never been touched. There was *NO* load on this circuit (GC, IR, computers, etc, all turned off and physically disconnected). Q: Did the breaker do it's job? A: Yes, the breaker was tripped. However the walls in the office had that 70's wood paneling instead of sheetrock, so it only took the momentary arc to ignite the wall. The fire spread inside the wall climbed and reached the ceiling (which was sheetrock) and was delayed until got around it to the loft (lots of 2x6's) and that is where the real heat came into play. Q: Did you have biodiesel, methanol, etc stored in the office? A: No, we didn't store any chemicals in the office, other than a helium tank for the GC and I think a 50lb container of anhydrous sodium sulfate (doesn't burn). Q: Were you homebrewing all of that fuel? A: Yes and no, I was processing about 250 gal of finished fuel daily. Although since I can't afford EPA registration I couldn't really risk pumping into friends vehicles. So I decided to start getting additional fuel from West Central to pump into on-road vehicles since it had fulfilled all EPA registration requirements. Q: The fire fighters seemed surprised by the blaze, were they unaware of your operation? A: I had visited my local fire department and also some of the remote stations in the region and informed them of my setup and seeked advice for proper storage and registration requirements. When the fire broke out a few of the fire fighters remembered my street and called for backup just as the first truck arrived. Q: Was anyone around when the fire started? A: I had left the property on Friday around noon. The first report of smoke either came in at 2:45 PM or 3:45 PM (Not sure, there were several reports made to 911). I was notified at 6:00 PM and was back at 7:00 PM. The fire had been extinquished 45 minutes after the fire fighters arrival (Pretty fast really). Q: Could this have been prevented by storing your biodiesel differently. A: No, the building could have been completely empty, it would still burned to the ground. Thanks for you interest, please feel free to call Jeff Brandt at 503-317-4564 if you would like more information. Jeff Brandt Sun Break Biofuels, LLC jeffb at sunbreakbiofuels.com

liltimmy, this had nothing to do with BioDiesel other than it was at a place that had Biodiesel housed in a responsible way, life happens and sometimes bad things happen. This does not give biodiesel a black eye merely shows the stability and non enviromental impact that regular petro diesel would have had. -SoyPower

I agree with the article though that says we should register our adress so that if there is a fire with biodiesel, or regular petro fuels, invloved, they will know how to properly handel the fire.

I know the cause of the fire had nothing to do with the biodiesel. I just thought it was unfortunate that pretty much every reporter felt the need to focus on the fact that the biodiesel made the fire so tough to put out. They really should have focused more on how much worse it would have been if it had been petro fuels of any kind that had gone up.