Surface-mine fires are grim, expensive and sometimes terrifying reminders that no industrial enterprise employing huge mobile, rotary and fixed equipment that operates around the clock, involving constant maintenance activity and using a wide variety of flammable liquids and materials, can be complacent about safety in the workplace-whether that place is in a maintenance shop or in the cab of a haul truck, shovel or loader. The mining industry generally receives passing marks for being cognizant of fire-related risks, and for making employees aware of those hazards. Nevertheless, fires still occur at frequent intervals at mines and plants, and in an era of high production demands, increasingly larger equipment types and more remote mine locations, almost any conflagration has the potential to cause significant disruption-even if it doesn't involve worker injury or worse.
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