Well last night we had an intense lightning storm move into the area.I was on the night shift and we were all wondering if the storm was going to kick the mill out.At 10:35PM we wondered no more.The power went out and everything was pitch back until the emergency lighting system on a backup generator kicked in.The power was only out for about five minutes but the machines were not able to start back up because power spikes were causing major problems with the computer systems and protection systems were constantly kicking pumps out. The shift supervisor decided to leave the entire plant down until the storm passed.Everyone had to assemble in the lunchroom in case the power went out again.No one is supposed to be roaming the production floor,or anywhere really, alone in the dark.BTW,the company I work for has it's own hydroelectric power generator plant but the powerhouse took a strike and was having difficulty providing clean,stable power for a while.We use a LOT of power,nine machines alone use over half a million watts EACH just to run the heater elements and some pump motors use more power than it takes to run a typical house with electric heat.Yep,we are energy pigs. Anyway, after the storm passed we tried to bring the plant back into operation but there were still problems with voltage fluctuations so we could not bring up the entire plant,only one side of it.Then we heard a page over the plant-wide PA system for maintence to go to the "wet end" right away. The "wet end" refers to that area of the plant where the wet paper stock is formed into the product by the various machines.About a minute later we heard another panic sounding page from the duty electrician calling for maintence AND the shift supervisor to the wet end IMMEDIATELY. Our first thought was oh God,someone got caught up in a machine. A couple minutes later the supervisor ran into the lunchroom and ordered all of us to go to the evacuation staging area and await further instructions.We had a major fire above #4 dryer and the fire dept was enroute.Needless to say we wasted no time in moving our butts.We were only about 75 feet from the other end of that dryer.A few minutes later the supervisor paged for all machines that were running to be shut down immediately and ALL personell to go to the staging area including those downstairs well away from the fire area.The fire dept declared the fire out of control upon arrival and was considering an evacuation.The fire doors were shut and no one was allowed to venture outside the staging area under NO circumstances.The fire occured in an exhaust plenum directly above a huge drying oven and spread into the oven itself.These ovens are a bit larger than an 18 wheeler freight trailer but well over 100 feet long and normally run around 450 degrees Farenheit.The outside wall of the ovens run quite warm to the touch but it will not burn you due to the insulation.The fire dept had a hard time gaining access to the blaze because of tight space and HUGE amounts of steam caused by the water contacting all the steel.The fire chief said that a 30-40 foot streatch of the oven was so hot inside that you could not even stand alongside the outside of it without fire gear on.The temp inside was over 1200 degrees.The FD was on scene for about two hours and thankfully no one was hurt but there were a few anxious moments I can tell you. We never did have to evacuate thankfully.The plant is HUGE and we were a couple hundred feet from the fire area with closed fire doors and never saw nor smelled smoke due to the way air currents were travelling and the exhaust fans at the other end of the plant pulling everything away from us.They are not sure if lightning struck the top of the exhaust plenum and traveled down into the dryer itself of if the exhaust fan overheated and caught fire but they are leaning towards a strike. There were several really loud booms earlier.The funny thing is that the dryer involved was not in use as the machine had been down for a few days due to lack of demand for the product made on it. God knows how long the fire had been burning before it was discovered as everything is enclosed.Anyway I am off now for twelve days of vacation time that was previously booked and the plant is back to about 90% operations with the exception of the affected machine and it will likely be back on line when I return to work on the 26'th.As it worked out the worst part about the whole thing is that no one had any marshmellows.