Fire crews tackle second machine blaze at Straumsvík smelter in a week

A large work machine caught fire inside the Straumsvík aluminum smelter overnight, prompting a fire service operation that lasted more than two hours. The incident, reported by mbl.is, came about a week after another machine caught fire inside the smelter.

The fire service received the alarm during the early hours of Saturday. The cause of the fire is not known.

“When a machine like this catches fire indoors, it is a highly serious matter, but fortunately this incident was confined to this one machine,” fire service supervisor Guðjón Ingason told mbl.is.

Crews faced difficult conditions and had to pull the machine out of the building before they could extinguish the fire completely. Water cannot be used to fight fires inside the smelter, and the building’s high electrical current can also pose a danger.

In the fire a week earlier, crews were able to put out the flames with powder. This time, it was difficult to reach and remove the machine, making the operation longer. Ingason said the two machines appeared to be of a similar type, though he could not confirm that they were identical.