LIVERMORE FALLS – A power plant damaged by an electrical fire late Friday is expected to be back online Wednesday.
People are working around the clock to make repairs to get the Boralex Livermore Falls biomass plant operating, said Richard Cloutier, general manager of Boralex Inc.’s U.S. plants. Boralex’s corporate headquarters is in Canada.
The Livermore Falls plant on Diamond Road burns wood residue, including wood chips, to make electricity, which is mainly sold to the New England power market.
About 50 firefighters from Livermore Falls, Livermore, Jay and Farmington fought the fire that started on the first floor of the plant, said Livermore Falls Assistant Chief Jim Chretien. Wilton firefighters were on standby at a Jay Fire Rescue Station.
Three Boralex employees had tried to knock down the fire but were unsuccessful because of heavy smoke, he said. The fire had been called in at 11:19 p.m.
Smoke and fumes rose to the second and third floor through metal floor grates and ignited the wood dust, Chretien said. The boilers and other parts of the plant were still operating until plant operators shut them down, he said. The fire burned the belt off a conveyor, which feeds the wood to the boilers, he said.
The hardest part was firefighters had to use air packs and climb three floors in the dark to get to the fire, he said. By the time they got there, half of their air was gone, Chretien said.
That’s why a lot of manpower was needed, he said. There was no light in the plant once the power plant shut down its system, he said.
There was damage to the conveyor system and other equipment on the first floor, he added.
It was the second time within a week that firefighters had been called to the plant. On Sunday, Feb. 13, Livermore Falls firefighters were called to extinguish a fire in the plant’s wood-chip pile. It was still smoldering last weekend.
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