Columbia Plywood Amends Permit In NC, Hopes To Add AirBurners FireBox

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality (DAQ) is accepting public comment on a draft air quality permit modification for Columbia Plywood Corp.—Columbia Carolina Division, the company’s plywood manufacturing facility in Old Fort, NC.

If approved, the modification would allow Columbia Plywood to install an air curtain incinerator unit from AirBurners at the facility to burn its wood waste for disposal—increasing potential emissions thresholds, thus requiring a Title V air quality permit.

AirBurners incinerators, branded as FireBox, were designed principally as a pollution control device for open burning. The primary objective of an air curtain machine is to reduce the particulate matter, which results from burning clean wood waste. Using a technology called “air curtain,” the smoke particles are trapped and reburned, reducing them to an acceptable limit per EPA guidelines.

Clean wood waste is loaded into the FireBox and an accelerant is used to ignite the pile. The air curtain is not engaged until the fire has grown in strength, usually after 15 to 20 minutes. Once engaged, the air curtain then runs at a steady state throughout the burn operation, and the waste wood is loaded at a rate consistent with the rate of burn. The smallest machine offered by AirBurners burns at a rate of 1-2 tons per hour, with the largest burning in excess of 10 tons per hour.

All public comments made to the DAQ before September 11, 2025 will be considered before a final decision on the proposed permit is made.

Latest news

Horizon Biofuels Explosion Kills Three

Horizon Biofuels Explosion Kills ThreeHorizon Biofuels, a wood waste processing plant that makes animal bedding and bagged wood pellets for domestic use in Fremont, Neb., suffered a catastrophic explosion that killed three in late July. After emergency crews battled...

read more

Find Us On Social

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Wood Bioenergy News Online hits the inboxes of subscribers in the wood-to-energy sectors.

Subscribe/Renew

Wood Bioenergy is published and delivered worldwide 6 times per year. Free to qualified readers in the U.S. Subscribers outside the U.S. are asked to pay a small fee.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative.