Winnipeg blaze sparked by combustion: fire official

WINNIPEG — A fire that lit up the sky and forced hundreds from their homes is being blamed on spontaneous combustion.

The Manitoba fire commissioner’s office has ruled that the Oct. 1 blaze at Speedway International fuel plant in Winnipeg was accidental.

The office said in a report Friday that the fire is believed to have started in an oily substance in the plant’s filter press area.

The report did not specify which liquid started the blaze, but said it began in a part of the plant where biodiesel is manufactured. Methanol fuel for racing cars and windshield washer fluid are also produced at the sprawling industrial complex.

Spontaneous combustion is not uncommon, but it takes time for heat to build.

“In industrial processes, the storage or disposal of oily rags in piles can allow them to self heat, or the combustion process could have been accelerated due to heat created from industrial processes like equipment operation or friction,” reads the report. “Piles of straw, coal and even large manure piles can spontaneously combust.”

The findings raise questions about whether the fire might have been prevented had the plant not been empty when it started.

Evan Basarowich, one of the plant’s nine employees, told The Canadian Press the day after the fire that the plant would normally operate throughout the day and into the evening. But the day shift had been sent home early on Oct. 1 because work had stopped while the plant waited for a shipment of magnesol — a powder used to purify biodiesel.