External fuel can arise due to:

  • lubricant spillages (e.g. grease) building up
  • workers conducting maintenance tasks (including for operational tasks) leaving flammable items such as rag waste on the machine
  • flammable dusts or liquids from the operating environment building up on surfaces on the machine, or
  • solid fuels (e.g. timber blocks or tools) left on the machine

Reviewing conditions on a mining vehicle for possible ignition and fire behaviour – flammable and combustible liquids

This paper published by Rickard Hansen from the Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia, presents a study on ignition conditions and fire behaviour on various types of mining vehicles involving flammable or combustible liquids, where data from earlier fire experiments, incident reports and fuel inventories on different vehicle categories are applied. [More...]