Losses resulting from fires

Chemical and hydrocarbon plant losses resulting from fires and explosions are substantial, with yearly property losses in the United States estimated at almost 300 million (1997 dollars).1 Additional losses in life and business interruptions are also substantial. To prevent accidents resulting from fires and explosions, engineers must be familiar with... 

Risk Manager The risk manager in an organization is typically responsible for insurance programs and other activities that minimize losses resulting from fire, accidents, and other natural and man-made losses. 

Much of the damage and loss of life in chemical accidents results from the sudden release of material at high pressures which may or may not result from fire. Chemical releases caused by fires and the failure of process equipment and pipelines can form toxic clouds that can be dangerous to people over large areas. 

Overpressure of boiling liquid resulting from fire or loss of process control... 

An example of a pure —or static - risk concerns a build-up of combustible material in the corner of a large distribution warehouse. If a source of ignition is present in the vicinity, then the risk of fire spread is greatly enhanced by the build-up of combustible material, thus posing the threat of a large loss of stock caused by fire. There will also be consequential loss resulting from the fire to consider, e.g. loss of profit on goods in stock loss of market share etc. 

Risk transfer refers to the legal assignment of the costs of certain potential losses from one party to another. The most common way of effecting such transfer is by insurance. Under an insurance policy, the insurer (insurance company) undertakes to compensate the insured (organisation) against losses resulting from the occurrence of an event specified in the insurance policy (e.g. fire, accident, etc.). 

Two types of initiators are internal and external. Internal initiators result from failures within a plant or the plant s support utilities. Thus, vessel rupture, human error, cooling failure, and loss of offsite power are internal events. All others are external events earthquakes, tornados, fires (external or internal), and floods (external or internal). Event trees can be used to analyze either type of initiator. 

As noted nearly five centuries ago, fires produce smoke and as learned this century, most of the fire deaths in this country result from people breathing that smoke (1). Over the years, the United States and Canada have had the worst fire loss records among the industrialized countries which keep such records (2). At present, the United States suffers 6,000 deaths and 30,000 reported injuries per year (3). The annual property damage exceeds 7 billion, and the total cost of fire is over 50 billion (4). 

Smoke is a by-product of most fires caused by the incomplete oxidation of the fuel supply during the chemical process of combustion. It accounts for a large majority of fatalities of from fire incidents at both onshore and offshore petroleum facilities. In the Piper Alpha incident of 1988, probably the worst petroleum industry offshore life loss incident, the majority of deaths were not from bums, drowning or explosion impacts but from smoke and gas inhalation. The report on the incident concluded that, of the bodies recovered from the incident, 83% were as a result of inhalation of smoke and gas. Most of these victims were assembled in the accommodation awaiting evacuation directions or as they may have thought - a possible rescue. 

Significantly endothermic AHf (1) 147 kJ/mole 2.8 kJ/g. The monomer is sensitive to light, and even when inhibited (with aqueous ammonia) it will polymerise exother-mally at above 200°C [1]. It must never be stored uninhibited, or adjacent to acids or bases [2]. Polymerisation of the monomer in a sealed tube in an oil bath at 110°C led to a violent explosion. It was calculated that the critical condition for runaway thermal explosion was exceeded by a factor of 15 [3]. Runaway polymerisation in a distillation column led to an explosion and fire [4]. Another loss of containment and fire resulted from acrylonitrile polymerisation in a waste solvent tank also containing toluene and peroxides (peroxides are polymerisation initiators) [5]. Use of the nitrile as a reagent in synthesis can lead to condensation of its vapour in unseen parts of the equipment, such as vent-pipes and valves, which may then be obstructed or blocked by polymer [6]. 

The most common application of forensic odontology is the identification of deceased individuals. Dental identification of human remains may result from a number of situations whereby the body is disfigured to such an extent that visual identification is not possible. Such situations include the victims of fire, violent crime, motor vehicle accidents, mass disaster, bodies found in water, and decomposed remains. Occasionally a body s dentition may be used for purposes other than identification, and several studies have investigated postmortem tooth loss as a potential indicator of time since death (Hall 1997 McKeown and Bennett 1995). 

---