Use of foam for firefighting in tank farms of the oil and petrochemical industry - Part 1

摘要

Most recently, a number of fires have caused massive damage to tank farms, oil refineries and loading terminals. Prominent examples include the ITC tank farm at Deer Park, Texas, USA in March 2019 and the refinery fire at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA in February 2020. Sadly, only news of this kind makes its way into the media, unlike near-miss accidents where improved fire-protection technology has prevented worse outcomes. This means that both fire protection and extinguishing methods must be improved to minimize the effects of future fires. Fire-protection systems in hazardous areas of the oil and gas industry (fire class B) require unique extinguishing systems as foam is considered the best extinguishing agent for liquid fires. The use of water can be important as well, however, for cooling the tank wall and adjacent tanks. Luckily, such large-scale incidents do not happen frequently, but when they do, they may have a severe impact on humans, local eco-systems and the general environment.