Wind turbine fire at Beaver Creek Wind Farm in Iowa

What happened

A fire broke out at about 9:30pm on a Thursday night in a wind turbine at the Beaver Creek Wind Farm, north of Beaver in Boone County, Iowa. The fire was reported by a nearby homeowner. Volunteer fire departments responded but could not fight the fire directly, as ladder trucks and hoses cannot reach the height of a turbine nacelle, which sat atop a tower reported as 312 feet (95 metres).

The fire was confined to one tower. The wind farm, rated at 170MW, comprises 85 turbines across Greene and Boone counties that were put into operation in autumn 2017. No injuries were reported. MidAmerican Energy Co., the operator, said on the following morning that its team was investigating the cause, and the Boone County Sheriff's Office made a preliminary investigation before handing the scene to the utility. The operator said it was uncertain whether the generator atop the tower would need to be removed and replaced.

Contributing factors

The cause of the fire had not been determined at the time of reporting. The operator said it did not want to speculate before reviewing all the facts, and the sheriff's office said no foul play had been reported.

Lessons learned

1. A nacelle fire at hub height cannot be fought from the ground, so the plan has to rest on early detection, remote isolation and a debris exclusion zone.
2. Nearby residents can provide early warning at remote sites, so local contact routes should be kept clear and tested.
3. Handover protocols between police, fire and the operator help scenes pass safely to technical investigation.

More lessons on structural integrity and turbines, detection and monitoring, investigation and fleet-wide checks, from every incident on the register.

Not yet known

• Turbine model and age
• Downtime and lost output
• Cost of repairs or replacement
• Whether the generator was removed

This entry is updated when these are reported. Get an alert for the next one like it.

Source

theperrynews.com