No Escape: Dangers of Confined Spaces

On October 2, 2007, five people were killed and three others injured when a fire erupted 1,000 feet underground in a tunnel at Xcel Energy Company's hydroelectric power plant in Georgetown, Colorado, located approximately 45 miles west of Denver. This CSB safety video explains how the accident occurred.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• CSB
• Chemical
• Safety
• Board
• Xcel
• Energy
• hydroelectric
• plant
• tunnel
• fire
• explosion
• Denver
• Georgetown
• Colorado
• OSHA
• permit-required
• confined
• spaces
• flammable
• materials
• emergency
• planning
• contractor
• selection

[totallymassive]

Every accident is preventable (is what I hang my hat on). It was very lucky that some survived, and tragic that others were lost. I hope they would suggest a provision for different chemicals to be applied next time so that an accident like this wouldn't have been possible. If that was not possible, they should have been instructed, in case of a accident, to run in the direction of the escape (at the very least), I do not put it on those that choose the wrong way but on the people in charge.

[Serostern]

When working with flammable chemicals inside a confined space - bring a few scbas and a fire extinguisher. You can have a bottle of oxygen and a 15kg drychem extinguisher on a decent dolly.

[patriotgta3]

@totallymassive i found RPI coatings was from califronia and had a poor worker sfaety record

[TheJimr1]

Used this in our Daily Safety Huddle. We operate in Brighton Colorado, which is about 70 miles from where this happened. This incident is still fresh on all our minds.

[jschanna]

As usual good job CSB. I use HSE (UK) guidance: Safe Work in confined spaces (Confined Spaces Regulations 1997) ACOP - free download from HSE website. Also, I think for a penstalk PTW, SCBA should have been used as part of the standard issue PPE.