The government of British Columbia said Tuesday that all sawmills in the province will be inspected, in the wake of two fatal explosions since January.
The news comes after a massive blaze triggered by an explosion at a sawmill resulted in the death of 43-year-old shift supervisor Alan Little on Monday night.
The explosion at the Lakeland Sawmill in Prince George occurred at about 9:45 p.m. local time.
About two dozen employees were taken to hospital with various injuries, which range in severity. Ten of them remain in serious condition, according to the Northern Health Authority.
Labour Minister Margaret MacDiarmid said she will "send an order out to all the sawmills in the province asking them, telling them, instructing them to inspect from top to bottom their mills, to make sure all steps are being taken to address current safety policy."
Mill workers were forced to run for their lives when the blast hit, triggering a fire and causing walls to collapse.
"Flames were shooting four, five, six stories into the air," Prince George Coun. Cameron Stolz told CTV News Channel on Tuesday. "It was absolutely devastating."
Smoke continued to billow above the facility early on Tuesday morning.
Emergency crews need to make sure the steel structure that surrounds the site is stable before they enter for any type of formal investigation, Lane told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.
Though he declined to comment on the possible cause of the blast, Lane said authorities have been able to rule out natural gas.
"This plant doesn't have any natural gas feed to it," he said.
On the police end, RCMP Cpl. Craig Douglass said officers intend to conduct interviews with people who were inside the building.
Brian Croy, first vice-president of the United Steelworkers Local 1-424, was with six people in the mill's lunchroom when the explosion hit.
"There was no warning, no nothing. All of a sudden there was a flash, next thing you know there was a boom," he told CTV News Channel on Tuesday morning.
The blast knocked down the lunchroom's plywood walls. Croy recalls seeing windows shatter as he was knocked to the ground.
Though the mill's lights stayed on, Croy said plumes of black smoke made it difficult to move and breathe. He shielded his face in his coat as he wriggled through gaps in the collapsed walls.
Miniature explosions could be heard as Croy and his colleagues tried to navigate the burnt-out facility. After descending a set of stairs, they escaped through a hole created in an outside wall.
"By the time we got out, the sirens were going and the fire trucks had already arrived," he said in telephone interview from Prince George.
At one point, Croy said the group met an injured coworker with missing fingers and charred hair. Together they travelled to a first-aid station outside the mill where they saw colleagues with burned limbs.
Twenty-five employees were transported to a B.C. hospital after the blast, according to mill owner Sinclar Group Forest Products Ltd.
Up to eight people were in critical condition, said a spokesperson for Northern Health Authority. Four of the injured had to be airlifted to hospitals in Vancouver and Edmonton, according to Sinclar Group.
There were 24 employees working inside the sawmill at the time of the blast, according to Sinclar Group. Sixteen others were working in an on-site planer mill, while four were in the yard.
Greg Stewart, president of Sinclar Group Forest Products, said the company refuses to comment on what may have caused the explosion until a proper investigation is complete.
"All of our attention right now is focused on ensuring our employees and their families receive the care they need," he said in a statement issued Tuesday.
Blast felt like ‘an earthquake'
Though firefighters have managed to contain the blaze to one building on the mill site, the explosion was heard and felt across the city.
Local radio host Matt Porteous said the blast shook his home, which sits approximately 10 blocks away from the mill.
"When it initially hit, I could have sworn that it was an earthquake," he told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.
Upon learning that the sawmill was on fire, Porteous -- like many others -- drove down to the site of the blast.
"I was greeted to the sight of a massive wall of flames. It was pretty unbelievable," he said in a telephone interview from Prince George.
About 170 people work at Lakeland, which includes a hot oil energy system for drying lumber. According to the mill's website, the facility's primary products are premier-grade, kiln-dried studs.
Prince George Mayor Shari Green said she anticipates the incident will affect employment in the community.
"There will be some jobs lost for now but we will wait and hear from Lakeland to see what it is they plan to do," she told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.
The incident marks the second fire at a B.C. mill in less than four months.
Last January, a blaze at the Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake killed two people and injured 19 others. Investigators are still looking into the cause of the fire.
