Fire tube steam boiler explosions

Paris, Tennessee - July 2007

In the early afternoon of June 18, 2007 one of two boilers at the at the Dana Corporation plant in Paris, Tennessee exploded causing extensive damage to the facility and surrounding area, and seriously injuring one employee. 

The 2000-built Cleaver-Brooks high-pressure firetube boiler was operating concurrently with a second high-pressure boiler (boiler No. one). Both boilers were online to handle the steam demand of plant operations. 

Tennessee state officials concluded that the main cause of the boiler accident was improper maintenance and the lack of operational procedures of the boilers.

• Accident report

• Boiler explosion pictures 

Salem, Massachusetts - November 2007

In the early morning of Nov. 6, 2007,  a boiler explosion at the Salem Harbor generating station of Dominion Energy New England in Salem, Massachusetts resulted in the deaths of three employees. The explosion occurred after a series of division wall tubes from boiler No. three "catastrophically failed within the east furnace lower slope dead air space," according to state investigators.  

Babcock and Wilcox water tube steam boiler explosion report