Smoke alarm test ignites dust and sets Wolfurt silo on fire

Dust ignited and fell into a silo at a business in Wolfurt on Monday afternoon during a smoke alarm system test, ORF Vorarlberg reported.

Employees from a specialist company were trying to trigger a thermal detector as part of the system’s annual inspection, said Armin Schertler, incident commander of the Wolfurt fire brigade, in an interview with ORF Vorarlberg.

When they opened a hatch, the dust caught fire and fell into the silo, Schertler said. “When we arrived, the silo was already producing a lot of smoke. We were able to put it out relatively quickly with water.”

However, silo fires present a particular challenge because the entire silo must be emptied to rule out any remaining hot spots.