Blast Furnace No. 7's Last Fire

On January 17, 2026, a Canadian steelmaker quietly ended half a century of history when it began decommissioning Blast Furnace No. 7 at its plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The furnace, which had been running since 1975, was once the largest blast furnace in the entire British Commonwealth — a piece of industrial infrastructure so massive it had practically become part of the city's identity. Alongside it, three coke batteries dating back as far as 1959 were also shut down, bringing to a close 125 years of integrated steelmaking at the site. The decision was accelerated in part by Trump's 50% steel tariffs, which had cost Algoma roughly $64 million in a single quarter and made its U.S. exports — about half of all its shipments — largely unworkable. Since January 19, 2026, the company has been producing steel entirely through two new electric arc furnaces, which melt scrap metal rather than smelting raw iron ore with coal and coke. The transition is expected to slash the plant's carbon emissions by up to 70%, making it the single largest industrial decarbonization project in Canadian history. About 1,000 workers were laid off as the old process wound down, a painful side effect of a transformation the company had been planning for years. The new EAF setup is built around two 250-tonne Digimelter furnaces from Italian manufacturer Danieli, giving the plant a total annual capacity that actually exceeds what the old blast furnace could produce. It's a story about a city, a furnace, and an industry all being forced to change at once — and choosing to sprint rather than stumble into the future.