“HIP” Furnace Explosion Update
February 4/2026 “The Monty Heat Treat News” had a news item entitled “Massive “HIP” Explosion at USA Commercial Heat Treater”, we followed this story up with another related article entitled “Are Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) Accidents Common?”.
We now have updates on both stories, the first update looks at the explosion from the standpoint of a local family and includes photos of the building which housed the furnace after the explosion; “Canby Family Displaced After Industrial Explosion Damages Home”.
Our second story “Are Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) Accidents Common?” generated a number of responses adding information about prior “HIP” incidents with one individual telling us about another incident we were not familiar with.
“In June 2004 two employees at the Bodycote HIP Ltd. manufacturing plant in Hereford, UK died after argon gas leaked into their workplace. The gas displaced oxygen in a confined space, leading to asphyxiation. (Source; Process Engineering).
The victims we a works manager and a maintenance engineer. Both were found unconscious in a concrete-lined pit into which argon had leaked and later died in hospital. (Source LabourNet).
The oxygen alarm was switched off and the ventilation system was not running at the time, meaning the atmosphere became deadly without warning.” (Source Process Engineering).
In our story “Are Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) Accidents Common?”, we mentioned three previous incidents, one of which involved a “HIP” furnace exploding in an Andover, MA facility back in 1998-it was later determined that the explosion occurred due to a forging defect.
Stories such as these serve to emphasize the fact that heat treating can be dangerous if all rules and regulations are not followed. In these examples failure to follow “Confined Space” guidelines directly lead to several deaths over the years.
