Mine Fire In Esterhazy

Gopher News 36 Comments

Just over local news, there has been a fire in one of the underground potash mines near Esterhazy, SK. Initial report is that all miners are accounted for and OK, and they’re currently working to get them out. They have 36 hours of air and water.
Update: It was a transformer fire. All miners are in “safe zones” and a rescue team is already underground.
11:30 pm local time update via local radio: 70 workers still underground, but they’re still safe. The fire (which started at 3am) is still burning, and there are 7 rescue teams underground (they’re being rotated). The Rawlco Radio reporter on the scene says that officials are confident that this will be “a good news story”.
Morning update: All are safe.

36 Replies to “Mine Fire In Esterhazy”

  3. Nice to have good news for a change regarding miners.
    Sad what happened down in the two US mines, glad it didn’t happen up here.
    cheers
    tom

  4. Dang! Good to know they’re alive and gonna be rescued! ‘Bout bloody time!
    It would be interesting to find out if the transformer that burned had PCBs in it, or the environmentally friendly chemicals. Anybody know which?

  5. Dang! Good to know they’re alive and gonna be rescued! ‘Bout bloody time!
    It would be interesting to find out if the transformer that burned had PCBs in it, or the environmentally friendly chemicals. Anybody know which?

  6. Doug:
    As someone employed in mining I find your little joke interjection utterly stupid at a time like this.
    Take it somewhere else.

  7. Doug, why would someone want to laugh and then get a sick feeling in their stomach when this post is about 70-Canadian minors now trapped underground as a result of a fire?
    The video you introduced is important and I hope Kate or someone here will draw attention to its core message later.
    Now would be a better time for a prayer and a wish of speedy rescue to our minors.

  9. Swift move, Doug, swift move. Couldn’t wait, eh? Or post it somewhere else? Obviously, no one you know is a miner.

  10. Coupled with the Virginia mine disasters, these events should make people realize that there are still a lot of occupations that are hazardous and there are those men and women who do these jobs so the rest of us can enjoy the life we do. To them and their families, my hat goes off to you and my prayers are with those affected in Esterhazy.

  11. The “36 hours of air” is a bit of misinformation. This is the amount of air in the refuge stations that is supplied by oxygen generators to allow the rated number of persons for that station to breathe without needing air from the mine workings. This was a regulation brought in a couple years ago in the province and was a good move. If the miners in West Virgina had made it to a similar station they would have all survived. Chances are that the air outside the station is perfectly fine but as a mine superintendent myself we always instruct everyone to stay in the station until a mine rescue crew gets to them. The miners will be quite bored, but they likely have a couple days worth of fart jokes to entertain themselves. It’s when conveyors go up in smoke underground that we worry a lot.

  12. We shouldn’t feel so immune to the tragic news from W.Virginia. nor to this news in Saskatchewan..
    My grandmothers family came from an area in Nova Scotia called New Glasgow, home now of a memorial to a mining disaster. A few years ago, the lawyer that handled my first house purchase, mentioned in passing that he had lost his brother in the Westray Mine disaster in Nova Scotia… one of 26 men that died then.
    Nobody was found “guilty”.
    In 1998, the Royal Commission of Inquiry recommended many changes to the provincial labour laws… but the federal government… I don’t believe they acted on any of it.

  14. Thank God they’re OK. It’s never 100% safe when men go underground, but everyone seems to be really trying to make it as safe as possible these days. Hope everything comes out fine, am praying for them.

  15. I am saying a small silent prayer right now. I heard on the CBC that all miners were not accounted for, but I am trusting Kate’s sources to be closer to the truth. Oh let this one be a happy ending. . .

  16. Stand down, everyone … potash companies have very sophisticated measures to respond to mine incidents … CBC report follows:
    Miners found safe in Saskatchewan mine
    Last Updated Sun, 29 Jan 2006 21:59:34 EST
    CBC News
    All 70 miners who have been trapped in a potash mine in southeastern Saskatchewan since a fire early Sunday morning have been found safe, mine officials say.
    CBC News reporter Briar Stewart, who was at the scene, said mine officials passed on the good news at a briefing shortly before 9 p.m. CST.
    Officials said it could be several hours before the miners were able to leave safe rooms, where they’ve been holed up since the fire broke out.
    Miners at the operation near Esterhazy, about 210 kilometres northeast of Regina, reported smoke almost a kilometre underground at about 3 a.m. CST.
    Mosaic, the U.S.-based company that owns the mine, was initially concerned because they weren’t able to make radio contact with about 30 of them after the fire started.
    Marshall Hamilton, who is one of the mine’s managers, said rescuers had to wait until the fire was brought under control late Sunday before they could enter the mine.
    Officials said the miners sealed themselves into special isolation areas, where they had enough oxygen, food and water to survive at least 36 hours.
    Hamilton said there have been other fires at the mine. “Most fires are relatively small: there’s not a lot that can burn underground. …A lot of fires you can put out by putting a couple shovels of potash on them,” he said.
    The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known.
    Hamilton said the miners’ families had been contacted.

  17. “Score one for Lorne Calvert & Co.” Actually, the credit should go the Neal Crocker, the Chief Mine Inspector, his boss Ernie Becker and the collaborative approach they used to canvass mining people in this province,myself included, in commenting on proposed changes to the mines regulations that were brought in in 2003. Don’t know who was responsible for the oxygen generator suggestion/regulation but it made sense since most other mines in Canada have compressed air piping systems running through mines that is perfectly breathable in times of crisis but potash mines do not. I’m suprised that Esterhazy does not have an underground radio system however since it appears they were using the phone system for communication which then got cut off probably by the fire burning through the phone line. I was down in that mine a couple years ago and it is very large and as a matter of fact, I don’t recall anyone carrying a radio that day.

  18. I was born in Saskatchewan, this makes my heart ache for these miners and families right now. People that live in the big cities just do not understand the working conditions and risks that country “folk” live with every day. They go to work every day fully understanding the risks that the day puts before them. I hope that everything is good news and the laws are being inforced to 100%. Anything less than that would be totally unexceptable. My thoughts and prayers are with them. Be safe…..

  19. My thought are with the miners and their families, this must be so frightening.
    MaryM, nice of you to grind you urban/rural politcal axe at time like this. Does it always have to be about “culture wars”?

  20. Soviet Canuckastani: Sorry if you didn’t like what I said, truth hurts and it was not ment about politics. I’m not about to get in a pissing match on a comment section regarding this subject. To the miner and families again, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

  23. mcdonald, I will defer to your judgement, knowledge, and experience. All the people you mentioned did a fantastic job.
    They have saved several lives.

  25. Another hats off to the mine inspectors. I worked with some of them while on the OH&S committee at a mine in northern Sask. They were some pretty level headed and hard-nosed guys who made a big difference and undoubtedly saved some lives.

  29. So who do you all pray to, since most don’t want anything to do with the God of the Bible and mock and discount his Word? BTW all are safe on the surface at this time.

  30. “So who do you all pray to, since most don’t want anything to do with the God of the Bible and mock and discount his Word? ”
    Thor? Ra? Allah? What a wonderfully inappropriate comment in this thread. If not your god, no god, right? Hell, pray to the god of getting miners out if you want.
    BTW, I suspect that you’ll find most of the people on this blog actually do have plenty to do with the God of the Bible … present company excepted.

  31. Thank GOD that they are safe. Re: Prayers do not
    reflect any one religion or belief. One does not have to “belong” to a church to have the ability to pray. When you have people in your prayers and thoughts, I believe,we are sending positive good thoughts and well wishes to people in a time of need.

  32. Tell The Rev.Calvert: Mosaic is a US operator. Amen. >>
    2004 Financials:
    * Annual revenues exceeding $4.5 billion (Pro Forma for FY 2004)
    * Total assets: $7.2 billion (Pro Forma for FY 2004)
    * New York Stock Exchange symbol: MOS
    Offices & Leaders:
    * Corporate headquarters: Minneapolis, Minnesota

  33. Masterpiece of emergency planning
    By JOHN COTTER
    The Mosaic K2 potash mine near Esterhazy, Sakatchewan. (CP PHOTO/Troy Fleece)
    (CP) – Alarm horns blaring through the deep tunnels of the Mosaic potash mine Sunday kicked off a well-rehearsed response routine that helped 72 employees survive dangerous smoke and fire. >>>
    cnews

  35. WOULD YOU PLEASE PRONOUNCE ESTERHAZY AS IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE PRONOUNCED???? E S T E R H A A Z Y NOT HAZY YOU LOOSERS!!!!

  36. In order to finish off this thread for the archive, you’ve got to believe we are all feeling incredibly proud about the outcome of this unfortunate event. Mining Week in Saskatchewan is coming up shortly and we spend a day usually in the Prairieland B building in Saskatoon holding a mine rescue competition. This has been designed to keep all the rescue crews in the province on their toes and it is a pretty intense competition somewhat like what the firefighters do. We’ve gone many years without a real emergency so you would think the teams would go a little soft but this competition keeps everyone sharp. We have a big banquet after the event and it is usually a big piss up. When the Esterhazy event happened you can be sure that there was 30 teams in the province at the ready with all their equipment just itching to get down there to prevent a Westray or West Virginia. As the mine superintendent of one of the underground mines in Saskatchewan and a director of the Saskatchewan Mining Association I am extremely proud of the teams involved and you can believe that the banquet this year is going to be one hell of a bash. Saskatchewans mines have been proven to be the safest in Canada and Canadian mines have been proven to be the safest in the world.

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