Bromley's Primary Snowmaking Pump House Burns Down
A fire has destroyed Bromley's primary snowmaking pump house, putting snowmaking on hold. the resort has said:
"To our loyal guests, homeowners and local community, this statement will address the fire in Bromley’s Primary Pump House that occurred during the night of December 16 and early morning December 17. It began with an electrical fault, and local fire departments responded. We are grateful no one was injured in the incident.
"Snowmaking and terrain status as of today: Bromley enjoys 178 acres of skiable terrain total, with snowmaking coverage on 135. We’re currently skiing and riding on 99 acres, 74 of which have snowmaking capability. Prior to shutting down last night, Team Snowmageddon pumped 50 million gallons up the mountain so far this season, leaving another 20 acres of additional terrain ready to be groomed and added to the trail count. Blue Ribbon and Yodeler will provide East Side access, and Plaza and Lord’s Prayer will provide slope side access for Bromley Village guests. By the end of the week we expect to be at 30 trails, spanning 118 open acres (66% open), with 93 of our snowmaking acres covered (almost 70%).
"What this means for Bromley right now: snowmaking is currently on hold, as Primary Pump functioned to push water up the mountain. We are actively working to source parts to put a temporary fix in place, allowing us to resume snowmaking as soon as possible.
"The long range plan now includes an opportunity for renovating a 20 year old system – it was state of the art when installed in the early 1990’s, but certainly has room for improvement today. We’ll release details on the long range plan once clean up is complete, salvageable parts identified, and a new shopping list finalized.
"What does this mean for your holiday plans? Mother Nature has provided us with great natural snow so far this season (over 2 feet), plus enough cold hours in November and December to achieve the snowmaking coverage outlined above. Our Snowsports School, Kids Center and all other Mountain Operations will continue as usual. Updates on the snowmaking pump system rebuild will be delivered as available.
"The old pump house building has been torn down and cleaned up. Our mountain ops crew worked through Tuesday’s nasty weather, unbolting thousands of bolts to get it all out of the way so that the motors and pumps could be removed, via crane, and shipped to Associated Electro-Mechanics (AEM), where they’ve been inspected and tested. We’ve received word that the pumps are in decent condition, as they remained submerged under several feet of water during the fire. Happily, the rotors in two of our motors are salvageable as well, and AEM will completely rewind them over the next week. We’ve also sourced some backup replacement motors from other locations, and these are at AEM undergoing tests to determine compatibility with our system and needs, just in case we need the contingency on the contingency plan!
"We’ve got a super warm and fuzzy feeling all over from the immediate, fast and helpful offers of assistance industry-wide. These include AEM and the BOC’s Brian Langille for sourcing starters. Killington, Peak Resorts, Stowe, Okemo, Cranmore, Jiminy Peak and hopefully not too many others we forgot to list have all been nothing short of spectacular, reaching out with offers to help, of equipment, and words of encouragement. Thank you also to Slavko Stancic, the original project engineer who worked with Bill Cairns to create the original pump house in 1993, who is back on the scene, delaying retirement to get us up and running again. Thanks to the Peru Fire Department and to Mountain Guard Insurance. Brian and Tyler Fairbank, we’re grateful to be able to count on your support! And especially to our own Bromley crews, Rick Goddard and Mountain Operations, and Chris Nevitt and his snowmakers.
"Oscar-worthy acceptance speech credits aside, Tuesday’s activities also included an on-site meeting with all key project players, including our Mountain Ops team, Slavco, AEM, Royal Electric and our local Sparky Electric to outline the rebuild plan.
"Building supplies have been delivered and construction has begun; we plan to have a weather tight pump house structure in place a week from Friday (12/29). Electrical work will follow, then two pumps reinstalled. The next step is to get the system talking to us – Slavco’ll step in with our IT guys and make that happen. When all that goes EXACTLY as planned, we will begin snowmaking, weather permitting, the week of January 8. It’s a super short timeline, but we wouldn’t even consider it if we didn’t have full confidence in the crews behind the plan.
"Update, December 20. Update to the short term recovery plan: while we continue to solidify the snowmaking solution, Bill Cairns has secured a 4th Pisten Bully groomer (a sweet red 600) to add to our fleet, a demo that'll be ours for the foreseeable future. She's already in service, and the results are good. Snow surface remains a priority, and should we need to resurface quickly, efficiently, and well - we've added 33% more top notch equipment to do so!"
