Technical Note SB80: Fibre pile management best practices

Wood fibre manufacturing dedicated to biomass fuel production such as wood pellet manufacturing uses industrial waste products such as hog fuel or wood chips from lumber mills, pulp and paper mills, wood products manufacturing and more to create their fuel products. Traditionally, these waste products are stored in large fibre piles at manufacturing work sites.  If not managed correctly, the accumulation of wood fibre in piles can pose a significant fire risk. These piles contain materials that consolidate and pack together.  The range of moisture content combined with various particle sizes and densities within the material leads to microbial growth and biological activity.  The combination of these factors can cause the fibre piles to self-heat over time due to the microbial decay of the wood fibre, triggering combustion within the pile(s).