Interfor Grand Forks

CURA acted as the Prime Consultant, and as the Mechanical/Site Civil/Fire Protection/Plumbing Consultant, and we provided a fully integrated design team of Mechanical, Architectural, Structural, Geotechnical & Electrical consulting services to deliver a new fire protection system for Interfor’s Grand Forks, BC operations, including two new fire system buildings as well as fire protection systems for a new lumber dry kiln.  The new fire protection system was required due to the installation of a new Continuous Dry Kiln (CDK) for processing green stick lumber at the sawmill.

CURA also worked closely with the City of Grand Forks’ Civil engineering consultant for the provision of 500m of new 14” (350mm) watermain through the City’s street network to service the increased fire protection demands of the sawmill site due to the substantial fire sprinkler demand of the new lumber dry kiln.

Technical details of the on-site fire protection system include:

• Installation of 640m of new underground watermains
• Construction of a new 1,200 ft2 (111m2) pre-fab steel fire pump building
• A new Night Watchman office was integrated into the fire pump building
• Two new diesel fire pumps of 3,500 USGPM/315HP each, to meet the system demand of 6,800 USGPM
• A new remote incoming water service & metering building
• Operating level kiln fire protection system of 3 deluge valves and pilot monitoring piping
• Dry fire protection system for the kiln fan deck
• Stainless steel piping for the kiln’s Energy Recovery (ER) sections

The project was delivered via an accelerated design-build format and was completed in one year from the commencement of design.