Wormald, the fire protection specialist has provided a range of life safety products and systems at the Ravensworth underground mine in New South Wales. The Ravensworth underground mine, which is managed by Glencore Xstrata, is located in the Hunter Valley Coalfields and employs around 280 staff and was developed for longwall extraction of coal. Wormald has supplied over 250 Scott Safety Contour 100 Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) with a 6.8 litre carbon fibre cylinders.

The Contour 100 SCBA is a lightweight, high performance set that designed for use in mining. The breathing apparatus has a shoulder-mounted pressure gauge, a high pressure cylinder connector and a Vision 3 facemask. The SCBAs are stored in moveable storage pods which are located at work sites within the mine and are easily accessible to work groups in the event of an emergency. Each pod holds up to 21 compressed air sets. Wormald also supplied forty auto-cascade fast fill stations at the site. The stations contain banks of compressed air cylinders that operate in an automatic cascade system, based on the pressure in the cylinders. These stations enable users to easily refill their breathing apparatus during an escape, without having to remove the cylinder. Enabling four users to connect to the stations at any one time means the process is quick and easy.

Tony Galvin from Ravensworth said, “Safety is of vital importance at underground mining sites and we need to ensure that adequate life safety equipment is easily accessible for our miners. The breathing apparatus and systems supplied ensure that, in the event of an emergency, our miners have access to enough air to escape.”