Five missing after B.C. sawmill explosion; 23 to hospital

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. – A massive explosion has rocked a sawmill near the city’s downtown, setting off a huge fire and prompting a frantic search for five workers still unaccounted for.

“Obviously our priority at this point is trying to track down those five people,” RCMP Cpl. Craig Douglass said two hours after the 9:40 p.m. blast at the Lakeland Mills sawmill.

“We do have a police dog team on scene working with the fire department.”

Twenty-three people were taken to hospital — 12 of them by ambulance — and a Code Orange was called at the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia, the Northern Health Authority said in a news release.

“Right away, injured victims made themselves known to fire and ambulance personnel,” Douglass said.

“Some of them did have severe burns and were taken to hospital.”

Douglass said flames shot high into the air and black and white smoke was thick.

Fire officials managed to contain the blaze to one building on the mill site, which borders the city’s downtown, but there wasn’t much hope of saving it.

“The explosion was catastrophic,” Douglass said, adding fire officials expect the building to burn for about 24 hours or more.

“They’re throwing water on it but I don’t think it’s going to be one we can win.”

The explosion shattered a quiet evening for Glen Thielmann, who was reading bedtime stories to his kids when the blast occurred.

“It rocked the house and sucked the window shut.”

Shortly afterwards, Thielmann walked down the block to join his neighbours, who were watching the flames in the distance consume the mill.

Thielmann said he lives about two kilometres away from the mill site. He estimated the flames had shot more than 60 metres into the air. Two hours later, clouds and steam were still pouring from the mill.

Sirens screamed through the night and the air smelled of wood smoke, he said.

Andrew Johnson, 30, a web designer and a photographer, said he lives about five kilometres from the mill.

“I actually felt the windows shake and the house shake from the initial explosion,” he said.

“It was interesting because it felt like there was a really big gust of wind that kind of just shook all of the windows in the house. So it was kind of just caught you off guard because you didn’t expect it and it didn’t seem like there was any wind outside.”

He said he could see the orange fire and smoke in the sky.

According to the company website, about 170 people work at the facility. The sawmill and planer mill complex includes a hot oil energy system for drying lumber.

The website said the mill’s primary products are premier-grade, kiln-dried studs. The mill also supplies fibre for two bioenergy systems.

In January, an explosion and fire killed two workers at Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake, about 230 kilometres northwest of Prince George.

WorkSafe BC is still investigating the cause of the explosion, but the mill was flattened and 250 people were thrown out of work.

Prospects of rebuilding the mill seem dim.

The mill’s owner, Oregon-based Hampton Affiliates, has said it can’t rebuild without a guaranteed timber supply, but there is a shortage of useable timber in the area.

— By Keven Drews in Vancouver