Water bath for cooling

Electric forklift truck caught fire during charging

The employees of a company in Kötschach do not have to drive to a charging station, they charge the vehicles at the company, where a smouldering fire broke out while charging an electric forklift truck.

(Bild: P. Huber)

An electric forklift truck was to be charged overnight at a company, but a smouldering fire broke out. Metal containers, a water bath and help from the fire department were needed to cool the batteries. At a company in Hermagor, a heated V-belt caused the fire department to intervene.

Between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, an electric forklift truck was parked in a factory hall of a company in Kötschach for charging. The 39-year-old managing director then noticed a smouldering fire by chance.

He was able to bring the smoldering forklift truck outside with another forklift truck and thus prevent further damage.

The Kötschach-Mauthen fire department lifted the electric forklift truck into a water bath in a metal container to cool the batteries.

Nobody was injured by the fire. However, the forklift truck was totaled. There was also considerable material damage in the factory building due to the smoke gas and soot precipitation.
The exact amount of the total damage is currently unknown.

Heated V-belt
There was also a fire at a company in Hermagor on Saturday: A 39-year-old machine operator from the Gailtal valley was operating a CNC wood gluing machine and noticed light clouds of smoke coming out of the chute for sawdust at around 3 pm. He immediately informed the fire department. The firefighters discovered the source of the fire to be a V-belt that had probably been heated to the flash point by strong friction, which ignited the surrounding sawdust. This friction in turn was probably caused by sawdust entering the belt circuit. 

The fire caused only minor material damage. The Hermagor, Kühweg and Mitschig fire brigades were deployed with a total of 24 firefighters.