
Initiate Plant/Fire Service Liaison
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What relationship does your plant’s fire brigade have with the municipal fire department? Do you work together? Do you “co-exist”? Do you care?
We are constantly telling our municipal fire forces to preplan their district’s target hazards which, with very few exceptions, include chemical and industrial plants. However, how much help and information do you, the fire brigade, make available to them? How much cooperation do you offer the “outside” emergency services?
An industrial fire brigade is a facility’s first line of defense in mitigating a fire or hazardous materials incident. But oftentimes mutual aid (municipal fire departments and agencies) must be called to the scene.
To put it frankly, you need the help of the outside emergency services much more than they need yours. A fire or other major problem at your facility might significantly weaken your plant’s position in the marketplace or, worse yet, might put your plant out of business permanently—which can also be detrimental to the community. Therefore, it behooves all of us on both sides of the fence to establish a good rapport and working relationship.
Photo by Al Trojanowicz
PREPLAN FOUNDATIONS
To adequately preplan for an emergency, you, in conjunction with the municipal emergency services, are going to have to ask yourselves a lot of questions. Once these questions are answered, you should come up with a good action plan to handle just about any situation. At the very least, a mutual dialogue, understanding, cooperation, and commitment will have been initiated.
The first question that must be cleared up before any incident is who is in charge, otherwise you’ll end up in fumble formation. Is it the head of the fire brigade? The municipal fire chief? The police chief? The owner of the facility? Or will the type of situation dictate who is in charge? In some cases, state or municipal law will dictate the in-charge agency or person.
After this, you must establish a good basis for an overall planning strategy. This involves five main areas:
- Taking the initiative;
- Determining available water systems;
- Determining the amount and type of available extinguishing agents;
- Establishing a communications network;
- Determining special problems.
Initiative
In most cases you must take the initiative, you must”, ask the fire and police departments and municipal agencies to come out to your facility. Explain to them that you’ll need their help if an incident occurs. Show them your facility’s built-in safety features, the products stored, and explain any special problems. Remember, you need the fire suppression group, not the fire prevention section. In a large city, this would mean the first-due companies. In a less populated area, this might be the first two volunteer departments. From the police, you’re not looking for the police community relations group, but for the people in the patrol cars who protect your district. In smaller areas, it may be the Sheriff’s Department or even the state police.
Water systems
In establishing your preplan, the water system is a critical component. The main size and static pressure at the hydrant will dictate some of your actions.
- How many hydrants (if any) are available? Are they dead-end hydrants? Is the water system looped? If you take water from more than one hydrant, do you reduce the overall pressure?
- Do you have an internal water supply system separate from the municipal water system?
- Are there other sources of water you can or must rely on, such as a river or fire department tankers?
You should test all water systems before an incident occurs. This will also let you know whether the connections and threads on your internal hydrants are compatible with the fire department’s threads. If they’re not, you and the fire department should have the proper connectors, reducers, etc. Another question to be answered is: Can the fire department pump into your system or lay hose lines from the municipal water supply to attack the fire?
Extinguishing agents
As you are aware, water won’t put out all types of fires. But water will be needed for cooling exposures and making foam solutions. Some small fires can be handled by carbon dioxide and dry chemical, depending on the amount and type. Dry chemical, again depending on the amount and type, and sometimes in conjunction with foam chemicals, can handle large fires. Sometimes you will use foam, dry chemical, and water in combination to attack a fire, but this must be worked out and planned ahead of time. However, on most large chemical fires, foam will be your primary firefighting agent.
Again the questions begin:
- What is your supply of foam? What is the fire department’s?
- Is it enough to do the job?
- Where can additional concentrate be obtained and how quickly?
- What type of foam system will be employed? Foam chambers? Subsurface injection? Or a portable system? If foam chambers are employed, have your chambers been tested? When? Do fire department personnel know where and how to hook up and utilize these chambers? Will the water system you are using provide enough water for both foam making and cooling operations?
If a portable system is employed, your foam requirement will be greater. Portable systems include any plant fire equipment plus the municipal apparatus. You must know what’s available ahead of time. During the emergency situation is not the time to figure it out.
Everything we have talked about so far can be summed up in one word: preplanning. Both you and the fire department must know what fixed systems (water and foam) are available; for example, water monitors for cooling, foam chambers on tanks, water sprinkler and standpipe connections. You must not only know what’s available, but also the locations for the connections for these systems. Diagrams of your facility must be provided to the fire department with this information.
Communications
If any plan is to work, a communications network is vital. You should determine the radio frequencies used by both your facility and the fire department. They won’t be the same, but possibly your radios have a spare channel that can be used during a mutual aid emergency.
In all probability, however, you and the municipal agencies will have to utilize the command post as your communications base and then transmit to each group on its own frequency. There is a possibility in the larger metropolitan areas that the fire department has a communications vehicle that can dial into your plant’s frequency when required.
Any major problems will also have to be coordinated from the command post. At this location should be the designated plant manager and the senior officials from the fire and police departments. Don’t clutter the command post with a lot of bodies, it will just add to the confusion. Use your communications network to provide the necessary data to handle the situation. A mock exercise will help you determine exactly who is needed at the command post.
A staging area away from the incident and the command post is another necessity. You don’t want all that equipment and manpower right on top of the incident or milling around your command post. The staging area (a parking lot, a park, etc.) may also be used as a field first aid station and a canteen. Again, communications are a must, because when another piece of equipment, more foam, or more manpower are required, they must be available and now, not 15 minutes from now.
Special problems
Now let’s examine a preplan from the point of view of the general area where an industrial fire might strike: tank farm, dock, warehouse, lab, loading rack, and the office section. It is suggested that you develop a general plan for each by looking at the potential harm to people, the exposure hazard, the environmental problems, and the type of systems you have available to combat the situation.
Using the tank farm area as an example, let’s examine the special problems we might face here and how this system would work.
- What is the life hazard? Minimal. However, if there is a southeast wind, then we must consider evacuating the North Valley apartment complex due to toxic smoke and fire communication.
- What are the prime exposures? The other tanks in the tank farm which must be kept below their ignition temperatures with protective streams.
- What are the environmental problems? A stream ¾-mile away that feeds into the Red River.
- What extinguishing system is available to handle a fire incident? There are foam chambers on all fire apparatus tanks, and 250 gallons of all-purpose foam is immediately available. Our cooling water will be supplied by three 1,500-gallon-a-minute pumpers from Smithtown with three 1,000gpm pumpers from Clinton going to the staging area.
- Where is the command post to be set up? At the administration building. It will be staffed with fire and police chiefs; the Water Department superintendent; and Mr. Smith, the superintendent of XYZ Chemical Company.
- Where will the staging area be set up? At Jones Park.
After you have gone through the above stages, a planning package should be put together and distributed to all involved agencies. The package should contain:
- The route from the fire station to your facility plus an alternate route.
- The location of public utility shutoffs. For example, we don’t need a gas powered furnace going with a flammable liquid leak.
- A diagram indicating the hazardous material shutoffs plus a note if left-handed threads are used.
- A list of the extinguishing agents required for the various chemicals and the amounts of these agents available locally.
- The names and telephone numbers of the owner and managers of the facility. Something different may be stored in the tanks since the last inspection was done.
- The names/numbers of the first-, second-, and third-due alarm units. In a smaller area, the names/ numbers of mutual aid companies would be required.
- A diagram showing the locations of hydrants both inside and outside the plant.
- A list of the exposures including people, places, and the environment.
Okay, now let’s look at a possible incident.
SCENARIO
Notification
When calling the municipal fire department, give them as much data about the incident as possible. Maybe only one pumper is required or, on the other hand, you may need a full third-alarm assignment. You don’t want your people to “cry wolf,” but remember, it is always better to get more equipment responding than might actually be required. All fire apparatus have radios, and equipment can be turned around en route; but if the necessary equipment has not been dispatched and is required, you have lost valuable time.
Approach
Always try to approach an incident upwind, and always don full protective gear and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). Remember, the guy who doesn’t put it on may never need it again.
Command post
Any attack on the fire must be coordinated from your command post. The command post must be identified and should be upwind of the incident so that the persons at it are not forced to wear SCBA, which hampers communications.
The command post should be mobile, as the incident may intensify or the wind may shift; and in either case, you will want to be able to move, fast. The command post should be some distance from the incident site. Exactly how far will be determined by the type of incident you’re faced with. Most important to the command post is a good communications network. As mentioned before, you’re lost without it, with it you’ve got a good chance of successfully mitigating the emergency. You should maintain communications with all the emergency services on the scene plus all the sectors fighting the fire and protecting exposures.
Initial attack
The first question must be do you attack. The answer will be based on the resources you have and how quickly they can be made available. Any attack must be coordinated with the command post. If conditions dictate no attack, then protect the exposures, prevent extension, and possibly evacuate.
Dealing with the media
During and after the incident, you will have to deal with the press. It is in your best interests to give the media the story as it is actually happening. If it’s bad, say so. If you don’t give the press a story (i.e., “no comment”), they will make up their own from hearsay. Your comments for the media should be coordinated from the command post.
All emergency services will have to give statements, which must be discussed beforehand, otherwise you could look very foolish. Possibly, you could put together a joint statement and then answer any individual questions.
I would like to suggest four points to keep in mind when talking with the media:
- Make a prestatement as to the incident status. This will answer
- some of the press’s questions and show that you are trying to assist them with their jobs.
- After you have answered their questions, go over your facts to make sure everybody is straight.
- Do not guess or speculate. If you don’t know the answer, say so.
- If you say you will get back to a reporter with an answer, make sure you do. If necessary, get the reporter’s name and telephone number to contact him later.
Cleanup
The incident is not over when the leak is plugged or the fire extinguished. You should have a list of contractors who will assist you in the area of cleanup. Getting vacuum trucks or electricians at 4 a.m. on a Sunday is not easy unless you’ve planned ahead. While the cleanup is progressing, you may need police and firefighters to keep the area clear and protect against a possible flare-up.
Cleanup also involves the decontamination of firefighters and equipment that have been exposed to the toxic and/or corrosive properties of the chemicals involved in the incident. You should consult with your plant’s chemical supplier to determine the adverse effects that exposure may cause. This information and recommendations as to the appropriate action to be taken should be passed on to every member of your fire brigade and the municipal fire companies.
Once the mess is cleaned up and the business is getting back into shape, you may wish to consult with the fire department to help make your facility more fire safe through the use of standpipes, dry chemical or foam systems, etc.
SUMMARY
Although this article has not touched on all the issues that go into planning for industrial disasters, the major points have been highlighted.
Again, take the initiative and meet with local fire and emergency agencies to develop a plan to cope with potential problems. Have your plan designed for the major problem ahd then scale it down for lesser incidents.