Blast furnace restarted after explosion

Staff report

WARREN

The blast furnace at RG Steel was restarted at 6 p.m. Monday, about 16 hours after an explosion in one of the blast furnace’s four stoves brought firefighters to the Warren Township plant to put out flames in a machine shop.

Bette Kovach, RG Steel spokeswoman, said the blast furnace makes molten steel with three of the four stoves, and workers were able to switch to the backup stove to resume production.

The stoves heat the air that is blasted into the furnace.

The blast furnace is back to operating at full strength, and the accident resulted in minimal reduction of production, Kovach said.

No customers will be affected by the accident, she said.

The company is still looking into the cause of the explosion and doesn’t have a dollar amount of damage to report, Kovach said.

Firefighters from eight departments responded to the Main Avenue Southwest entrance to the mill at 1:44 a.m. They worked more than three hours to bring the fire under control.

Debris that came out of the top of the stove landed on the roof of the nearby machine shop, causing the fire, Warren Township Fire Chief Kenneth Schick said. There was no fire in the stove, he said.