DISASTER RECOVERY-BINGERA MILL FIRE

AT BUNDABERG SUGAR’S Bingera Mill on 13 May 2014 at about 8 pm a fire started along the milling train. The direct source of the fire was unable to be determined, but was thought to have started in or around the milling train motor control centre (MCC) room. As the fire occurred at night and prior to the start of the crushing season, nobody was present to raise the alarm. The MCC room was not fitted with smoke detection, so the fire was able to take hold and burn through the night. Damage to the mill included the razing of the entire MCC room and associated transformers, damage to the side wall of the mill building and the destruction of three bagasse conveyors and two inter-carriers that are located in close proximity to the MCC room. There was also damage to the mill’s No.2 overhead crane, hydraulic and cooling water hoses at No. 2, 3 and 5 mills, and field wiring in cable trays near these mills. When the fire damage was discovered the following morning the fire had burnt itself out. With the scheduled start of the 2014 crushing season only 6½ weeks away, the task of repairing the fire damage and keeping the rest of the mill’s maintenance programme on track was not going to be possible. After several days of preliminary planning, a goal of 9½ weeks was advertised as Bingera’s revised season start-up date. Given the scope of the project and the tight timeline, it was necessary to divide the work between several contractors providing similar services, as no one contractor had the available capacity to supply all that was required. In all, more than 32 key contractors and suppliers were used to reinstate the fire damaged section of the mill and for the most part these were separate from any contractors that were still working on other projects within the mill. Project management was challenging, as the timeline did not allow for the traditional level of documentation to be generated for a project of this size. Instead the project was managed as much as possible using site work or local fabrication, with regular inspection visits and communications. The project’s critical path centred on the replacement of the No. 2 bagasse conveyor. Therefore, 3D scanning of the area around this conveyor was used to obtain fast accurate modelling data for the design and construction of this equipment. Nine weeks after the fire, steam trials were run and some trial cane was crushed, with Bingera’s season starting on 21 July 2014, as advertised.