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Fire consumes waste paper at Catalyst Paper’s Arizona mill

A fire in the storage yard at Catalyst Paper’s Snowflake Mill in northeast Arizona has shut down production and destroyed approximately 14,000 tonnes of recovered waste paper. There were no serious injuries, and paper production is expected to…

A fire in the storage yard at Catalyst Paper’s Snowflake Mill in northeast Arizona has shut down production and destroyed approximately 14,000 tonnes of recovered waste paper. There were no serious injuries, and paper production is expected to resume later this week.

The fire broke out at approximately noon Apr. 18 in the waste paper storage area. The mill’s emergency team responded immediately and local fire departments were called in to help contain the blaze.

Fire breaks were put into place to limit the spread of the damage as high winds challenged response team efforts. As the winds eased through Monday evening, responders were able to make better progress in extinguishing the fire.

Details on the cause of the incident are not known at this time and the mill will remain down until the full extent of damage to its waste paper feed system is known.

Catalyst Paper announced plans last week to curtail production at the Snowflake mill, to adjust for limited availability of affordable, quality waste paper and to keep inventory levels in check. The plan was for a total of about six days of downtime over the next several weeks.

The Snowflake mill has annual production capacity of 337,000 tonnes of recycled newsprint and uncoated specialty papers.

Catalyst Paper manufactures diverse specialty printing papers, newsprint and pulp. It has four mills located in British Columbia, plus the Snowflake mill in Arizona.