Preplanning to minimise the environmental impact of fire

Most industrial and commercial sites have the poten-tiai to cause significant environmentai harm and to threaten both water resources and pubiic heaith. The Environment Agency has pubiished a series of Poiiution Prevention Guidance Notes with the aim to reduce the risk of significant environmentai incidents occurring. 

In the majority of cases it will be possible to reduce the risk of a fire having a serious impact upon the environment by ensuring that appropriate pollution prevention measures are in place. 

The Environment Agency argues that the key to reducing the environmental risk from a fire (or other incident) is to have a contingency or pollution incident response plan in place. The plan need not be expensive to prepare, but could minimise the consequences of an incident. 

An example of an incident response plan in shown as Appendix 13.2. 

The plan should be drawn up by people with the relevant competencies and may in many cases be developed in consultation with external agencies or specialists in the field. The plan should include  

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