It’s Not a Fire, It’s Biomass

June 12, 2013. Source: Hib­bing Dai­ly Tribune

HIBBING, Min­neso­ta — The light­ing of the bio­mass boil­er by the Hib­bing Pub­lic Util­i­ties (HPU) Wednes­day has result­ed in smoke over the city.

The Hib­bing Fire Depart­ment and 911 have received numer­ous calls of per­sons report­ing smoke or fires in the area, accord­ing to Fire Chief Scott Nehiba.

“There is smoke waft­ing through the city, but it’s not from a fire,” he said. “Until it (the bio­mass boil­er) is burn­ing effi­cient­ly, there will be some smoke.” Nehi­ba said 911 and fire crews are aware of it, stress­ing there is no need to wor­ry or call.

HPU lit off the wood boil­er at 8 a.m. Wednes­day, which result­ed in a large amount of smoke com­ing from the stack, said HPU Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Gary Myers. HPU lights the boil­er about three or four times a year, and it does gen­er­ate smoke as work­ers slow­ly warm the wood and slow­ly increase the tem­per­a­ture until it comes online. This process takes four to six hours, Myers said.

There may be more smoke than nor­mal com­ing from the boil­er Wednes­day morn­ing due to wet wood. When the wood is wet, HPU needs to put more air on it to get it lit, Myers said. He added that the smoke will dis­ap­pear once the wood is burn­ing well, and area res­i­dents should notice less smoke by 2 p.m. Wednesday.

Nehi­ba said HFD has been in con­tact with HPU, adding that they have dis­cussed HPU giv­ing HFD notice of when they light boil­ers in the future. “That way we could give more notice out to the pub­lic,” he said.