Rescue Efforts Defended in Plant Fire

Officer Nick W. Borys of the Georgetown, Colo., Police Department stops a motorist headed up Guanella Pass where five maintenance workers are trapped in a pipe at an Xcel Energy hydroelectric power plant after a fire started in the facility near the small mountain community of Georgetown, Colo., on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007. Rescue workers are toiling to reach the workers as night falls on the mountains. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) (David Zalubowski - AP)

The smoldering fire broke out about 1,400 feet from the tunnel's bottom and was reported around 2 p.m., authorities said.

Four RPI workers escaped from the tunnel and were treated at a hospital and released. Five others scrambled about 1,000 feet above the fire but were trapped by smoke and the steep, nearly impossible-to-climb slope at a spot where the tunnel bends from a 15-degree angle to a 55-degree one, Nay said.

Officials dropped a radio to the workers, who reported around 2:40 p.m. that they were uninjured, but that may have been the last contact rescuers had with them, Nay said.

Rescuers also dropped breathing masks and air tanks into the tunnel but were unsure if the workers were able to find them or use them, Nay said. Powerful fans were used to drive air into the tunnel and clear it of smoke so that the trapped crew members could breathe.

Alpine rescue team rapellers prepared to enter the tunnel from the top, but were called off for fear of toxic fumes and because it would be difficult to get the victims out through the steeply pitched top end of the tunnel, Nay said.

Officials said they decided it would be easier to reach the trapped men from the bottom of the tunnel.

A crew from Colorado's Henderson molybdenum mine, specially trained in confined-space rescues and firefighting, began making its way through the smoke in the tunnel at 5:40 p.m., officials said. At 8:10 p.m., the crew reached the trapped men, discovered they were dead, and retreated, Nay said.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board are investigating.

The agencies will focus, among other things, on conditions inside the confined space and what type of protection and safety training the maintenance crew had, OSHA spokesman Rich Kulczewski said.

"We're devastated over the loss," said RPI Coating spokesman Marc Dyer. "They were very experienced guys. They were some of our best."

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