Fire traps more than 100 miners at Allan potash mine

Fire in a piece of machinery at the Allan PotashCorp mine trapped 114 workers for hours Monday.

PotashCorps Director of Public Relations Randy Burton told 650 CKOM the fire started in a loader around 3:30 p.m.

Burton said a suppression mechanism in the loader helped get the fire out quickly.

“It was activated and started putting out the fire on its own,” he said. “the miners nearby had access to extinguishers and went to work as well.”

Because of smoke Burton said the 114 miners had to go to refuge stations where there’s clean air until the emergency response team gave the all clear.

It’s expected all the miners will be back on the surface by 12:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The cause of the fire hasn’t been determined yet.

“We’ll be looking, obviously very closely at the machine to try to determine that and see what we can learn from it,” Burton said.

Operations at the mine are expected to run as normal Tuesday.

Allan, Sask. is about 62 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon