A fire has destroyed part of the Glorinha industrial complex of Brazilian wood panels manufacturer Fibraplac Paineis de Madeira SA in the country’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul.
The mystery weekend blaze is reported to have broken out at night in a warehouse containing stacks of board including laminated MDF, flooring panels and scrap material for use in pallets and the energy plant. Regional press reports stated that no one was injured in the incident.
Firemen from neighbouring towns of Gravatai and Santo Antonio da Patrulha took more than 10 hours to contain the blaze as the flames were fanned by strong winds. The warehouse was said to be badly damaged and will probably need to be rebuilt.
The mid July blaze damaged only around 2% of Fibraplac’s manufacturing area and Glorinha’s MDF and MDP (medium density particleboard) panel production lines were unaffected, the firm’s commercial manager Marcelo Verfe was quoted as saying in Brazilian press reports.
He added that the plant’s manufacturing, main panel storage and shipping areas had continued operating normally. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Fibraplac has an overall panel production capacity of around one million m3/year, with a 500,000 m3/year MDP line and two MDF lines with a similar combined output. It also has three melamine laminating lines at Glorinha.
