$3m Kiln Fire At AKD Softwoods

10 January 2007
A large fire has caused more than $3 million damage at the AKD Softwoods mill at Colac, 150 km south west of Melbourne.
More than 40 Country Fire Authority firefighters were called to the sawmill after a blaze broke out in a 20 m high kiln shortly after 1 am on January 9. The situation escalated when an elevated tank containing hot oil expanded with the heat and overflowed onto an area where the firefighters were attacking the blaze.
The fire is believed to have been started by a fault in piping that transfers oil into the kiln.
AKD Softwoods processes about 400,000 m³ of sawlog a year, some of which is harvested from 6000 ha of company owned and managed land, with the remainder sourced from plantations in the south-west region of Victoria.
Established in 1955 as Associated Kiln Driers Pty Ltd, trading as AKD Softwoods, the company expanded into sawmilling in the mid-1969s drawing supply from the region’s extensive radiata pine plantations.

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