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On Thursday 10th September a fire broke out in one of the silos at Felleskjøpet next to Vaksdal Mølle, east of Bergen.
– We’re afraid this could explode, says Deputy Fire Chief Frode Bødtker of the Bergen Fire Service.
Vaksdalsposten, who has closely followed the fire for the past week, writes that the 27-meter-high silo contains dog and cat food. The feed is nine meters high in the 3×3 meter silo.
After taking over and cooling the fire, it resumed on Friday, September 11. Now the fire brigade is not sure how long they will have to hold out before the fire goes out.
– We may have to wait another two days or two weeks. It’s uncertain, says Fire Chief Leif Linde in the Bergen Fire Service to NRK.
NITROGEN: Large tanks of nitrogen, both liquid and gaseous, are located next to the silo. Cool the hot passage in the smoky fire.
Photo: Cato Kristensen / NRK
Special fire
The large silo is completely closed, so firefighters cannot see the smoldering fire. They have to stay outside and watch if the temperature rises or falls.
Linde describes the fire as dramatic and says silo fires are rare. In two other cases in Norway this year, there is still an explosion, according to the fire marshal.
This is precisely why they cannot open the silo to extinguish, because then more oxygen is added.
– We have crews 24 hours a day, so we have control of that. But this is a fire that is difficult to put out and requires a lot of effort, says Linde.
There are teams from Vaksdal, Dale and Arna who have contributed to the firefighting work.
Mølla is located by the fjord in Vaksdals-bygda and is part of a long and rich industrial history. At the beginning of the 20th century, Vaksdal Mill was the largest mill farm in Scandinavia.
The silo it is burned in, on the other hand, is from the 1970s.
MØLLE: Vaksdal Mølle, photographed in the summer of 2020.
Photo: Jon Bolstad / NRK
Cooled with nitrogen
Latent fire is difficult to extinguish because the silo gives the fire a closed atmosphere where heat and gases are allowed to develop.
The fire department has now drilled several holes in the bottom of the silo, where they pump nitrogen in gaseous and liquid form at regular intervals.
– Nitrogen is withdrawn into the incandescent mass and cools the fire. But on two occasions we have waited a bit to see the development and then the heat immediately rises again.
The Felleskjøpet factory manager praises the efforts of the fire brigade, as well as those of his own employees.
– Both the local fire department and our own people are working to lower the temperature and find a solution to this, says Geir Hanevik to Vaksdalsposten.
