(3D Satellite, I don't know which one is Furnace D)
I remember writing about Burns Harbor because it was a greenfield steel plant built by Bethlehem built along Lake Michigan. The construction was in the 1960s and 70s, and I think it was the last integrated steel works built in America. But I can't find my notes for it. Fortunately, a brief history and several photos are available here. (Update: I found those notes. These notes are now just about the explosion and its repair.)
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| Ryan Boots posted Burns Harbor D furnace. Phil Twombly: I was with graycor with them on 2008 stove and furnace reline on the D furnace in Bethlehem itll always b Bethlehem steel to me but yeah we did the C furnace next to it in 2006. [I gather from the comments that running slag into that pit is not normal.] |
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| Robert Meyer commented on a post Burns Harbor "D" furnace. (Dave Mrgel photo, Northwest Indiana Steel Heritage Project collection) First conveyor fed furnaces and largest in Western Hemisphere when built. Start up 1969. |
The dome of the D1 hot stove blew off at 6:20 am on July 16, 2020. No injuries were reported, and the furnace was safely taken offline. "A video posted to social media showed the explosion at Blast Furnace D showered the mill with the shrapnel of large chunks of burning hot white refractory, the interior lining that protects the blast furnace shell from the super-heated temperatures within during the steelmaking process, suggesting that significant damage occurred." The was no "negative impacts to receiving waterways."[NWI and various Facebook comments] I've now seen reports that the furnace is back online.
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| Screenshot Blast furnace "D" explosion of ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor works. Indiana, 7/16/2020 (shared from the internet) See Less |
A share of the above video caused some 14 more photos to be provided as comments. The comments also include a couple of links to news report videos.
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| safe_image for REPORTED EXPLOSION AT BLAST FURNACE IN BURNS HARBOR It was the top of the D1 stove not the furnace. Electrics at the top of the furnace are shot along with the hydraulic house. Happened at 6:20 am so no one was hurt. They were casting at the time. |
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| Michael Janik-Opie posted, cropped https://youtu.be/vMXHrlSdyWg [There are some raw videos posted in the comments.] Josh Helfmann: It was a stove. Investigation already done and back up and running. |
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| INDUSTRIAL CULTURE & PHOTOGRAPHY posted [A video about the photographer with English subtitles.] Okay guys, that explosion yesterday was a mess. But how many times you burnt something yourself? In the end it is not that bad as it looked first. It was just one hot-blast stove out of four. Blast furnace can carry on with three stoves only. That means the production is not endangered and the mill crew is doing their best to put this lady back to work!   Just keep on mind - ZERO injuries. ZERO! Considering how big the explosion was this is simply incredible. A proof how high the health&safety standards are inside the ArcelorMittal USA .  Stay strong, guys! It will be all good!  On the picture: Blast furnace "D" and the top fo the hot-blast stoves Burns Harbor, 10/2015 [Some comments indicated the estimate to repair was 3 weeks. Many comments indicated it would be months instead of weeks. The 3 week estimate was about right. But I don't know if that is because they are running with just three stoves.] There is no way that stove can be fixed in 3 weeks. They can blank that stove and run on 3. However with the condition of the remaining stoves as they are from lack of maintenance pushing them harder probably isn't going to end well. Those stoves have bandaid fixes over bullet wounds. [This is not the first comment I've seen this week that ArcelorMittal is running its steel plants into the ground.] With that much of an explosion and fire , and also the abrupt shock waves that come with, id only be concerned for brick failures and hot spots as they bring the heat back up. You never know what you got until the hand is dealt. Nate Fisher it wasn’t because the mill is safe it was all about the timing I work on both of these furnaces everyday. Nothing more then luck. Was that stove on gas or blast when it let loose? |
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| Ryan Boots commented on a post That is the furnace top hydraulic room. |
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| Ryan Boots commented on a post This area here. |
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| Ryan Boots commented on a post Donald Summar is that mostly refractory material that's laying all around?yes, it’s all refractory |
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| INDUSTRIAL CULTURE & PHOTOGRAPHY posted And SHE is back! After 3 weeks of intense work blast furnace "D" of ArcelorMittal USA works in Burns Harbor is slowly warming up again! The production was interruped by a hot-blast stove explosion on 16th of July 2020. Nobody was hurt. Great job, guys!! |
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| Collin Surane commented on a post Top of D and the 250 crane that was there. The walk up to the bleeder deck sucked. |
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| Eric Cusick commented on a post Been up there hitting it on 7/12s. Electricians local 531!! |
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Bruce Chaffee Jr posted two photos with the comment: "She's back up and running!"
Doug Stone
I hope we all have orders galore brother. But burns harbor is coming back with a fury.Still waiting at arcelormittal cleveland to fire our 2nd furnace back up.
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| Mark Goodrich commented on a video post Post of a YouTube video Richard Allison: Old news. Repairs made and back online making iron. |
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| safe_image for Back from the blast: Recovering from an explosion at Burns Harbor [They finished temporary repairs of the furnace in three weeks.] Bill Hill: Should be noted that only the furnace is back. The stove is still out of commission. I believe a likely cause was a poor operating policy by Arcelor Mittal is which D1 stove was shut down for three years under a previous superintendent. Normal operating procedure for Bethlehem and ISG was to use all four stoves. Two on blast and two on gas. Shows how Arcelor’s lack of spending on maintenance and more inefficient procedures leads to some major failures. |
Slag Pit Explosion
I'm generalizing these notes to be various booboos in this plant.
I saw several posts on Nov 30, 2021, of debris in the sky. This is this most timely one. That is, the "cloud" had dispersed more in the other photos. No one was hurt.
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| Calvin Dorward posted, cropped This happened today at CC Burns Harbor in. Slag pit explosion. Saw many of these over the past 50 yrs. Working at Blast Furnaces. Calvin also posted a cropped version of his photo [This post has quite a few comments.] |
Many comments on those posts said this is what happens when you pore molten rock on water. (Some said molton iron and others said slag. That is why I generalized to molten rock. It doesn't matter what is hot, it only matters that it is liquid and very hot. One comment indicated that water expands 1600 times when it phase changes from liquid to gas (steam).
William Grin commented on a post:
Sometimes iron will flow out with the slag. That happens if the slag Dam was to low or washed out during the cast. The slag pit is cooled off in-between cast and the iron being heavier than slag will seal over a spot in the pit and a hydrogen gas forms and a explosion occurs. During my 30 years on Blast Furnaces. [So it is more complicated than water flashing to steam. That would explain why this level of explosion doesn't happen too often in a steel plant. Hydrogen is nasty stuff, and society converting to it to be carbon free scares me. If people are worried about LNG and nuclear power, I'm afraid they will have more valid fears if we start using hydrogen. But what else has the power density of fossil fuels?]
Ashlee Skalka: It was actually about 12:05. I work across the street and I called my husband who works there to check on him after the booms stopped at 12:06. Scary stuff!!Duneland fire departments now responding to explosion at Cleveland CliffsAt least half a dozen fire departments, including the Tri-Town FDs, have responded to an explosion at Cleveland Cliffs’ Burns Harbor facility.The explosion occurred at approximately 12:13 p.m. today, Tuesday, Nov. 30, but information at the moment is sketchy. Chesterton Fire Chief Eric Camel has received a preliminary report from the scene that the explosion may have originated in the blast furnace or its slag pit. It was his understanding that the furnace was in the process of being idled today.As of 12:34 p.m., there was an active fire at the Cleveland Cliffs facility, with the Chesterton, Porter, Burns Harbor, Liberty Township, Ogden Dunes, Portage, South Haven, and Washington Township FDs all on the scene, Camel said. Also on the scene: the Porter County Emergency Management Agency with its command truck; and Northwest Health Porter EMS.Camel was currently on station with a crew of volunteers and call-back career firefighters, tasked to responding to any calls anywhere in Duneland.So far there have been no reports of injuries, Camel noted. “But that could change.”At 12:11 p.m. today—actually two minutes before the CFD was dispatched—the Public Affairs Liaison received a text from a Crocker resident who stated that the blast shook her kitchen window.At 12:17 p.m. he received a Facebook message from a follower in the Downtown, who—eight minutes earlier—saw “a pink mushroom cloud” and heard “four large explosions.”
A video in this report shows that there must not have been any wind. I was surprised for how long the mushroom cloud held its shape. This report also has several Twitter screenshots of the "cloud."
This event got 18 column-inches on page 2 of the Dec 1, 2021, Chicago Tribune with the headline: "Explosion ignites fires at plant in Burns Harbor." Burns Harbor Fire Chief William Arney said "a few vehicles, dumpsters, a couple industrial buildings within the mill complex and rubbish caught fire." Assisting the Burns Harbor fire department were Porter, Portage, South Haven and Ogden Dunes fire departments. The Burns Harbor fire department doesn't often get called out to the mill to fight fires.
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