ARTICLE IN PRESS

Fire Safety Journal 43 (2008) 583–588

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Jet fires and the domino effect

Mercedes Gómez-Maresa,, Luis Zárateb, Joaquim Casala
a
Centre d’Estudis del Risc Tecnològic (CERTEC), Department of Chemical Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
b
Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Puebla, México
Received 30 January 2007; received in revised form 16 January 2008; accepted 16 January 2008
Available online 3 March 2008

Abstract

The direct effects of a jet fire are among the least severe of the diverse fire accidents that can occur in industrial installations or in the
transportation of hazardous materials. However, jet fires often affect equipment (e.g., a pipe or tank) that may subsequently fail and
ultimately amplify the scale of the accident. This process, known as the domino effect, can have severe consequences in accidents that
involve a jet fire. However, no studies have been carried out on its significance. A survey performed on data taken from several accidents
databases has revealed the most frequent accident sequences. In 50% of the reported cases involving a jet fire, an additional event with
severe effects also occurred.
r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Jet fire; Domino effect; Major accident

1. Introduction
Historical analysis shows that fires are involved in a large
proportion of the accidents that occur in industrial
installations or in the transportation of hazardous materi-
als. Fires are the most frequent occurrences, followed by
explosions and gas cloud formation. Darbra and Casal [1]
found that for accidents occurring in sea ports, 51%
corresponded to the general case of ‘‘loss of containment’’,
29% were fires, 17% were explosions and 3% were gas
clouds. When only accidents leading to fire, explosion or
gas clouds were considered, the resulting values were
59.5% for fires, 34.5% for explosions and 6% for gas
clouds. Among accidents occurring during the transport of
hazardous substances by road and rail, 65% were fires,
24% were explosions and 11% were gas clouds.
Fire accidents generally have a shorter damage radius
than those corresponding to other major accidents such as
explosions or toxic clouds, and their dangerous effects are
usually confined to a relatively reduced area. However,
these areas typically contain thermally sensitive equipment
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 934016675; fax: +34 934017150.
E-mail address: m.gomez.mares@upc.edu (M. Gómez-Mares).
that can become incorporated into the accident via the
domino effect. This is especially important in installations
that have an extremely compact layout, such as offshore oil
platforms and some processing plants.
Although jet fires are usually smaller than pool or flash
fires, locally they can be very intense. Jet fires are
characterized by very high heat fluxes and if they impinge
on equipment (e.g., a tank or a pipe) they can rapidly
produce catastrophic failure. An example of this scenario is
the accident that occurred in San Juan Ixhuatepec, México
in 1984: the first boiling liquid expanding vapour explo-
sions (BLEVEs) occurred only 69 s after the initial vapour
cloud explosion (due to a release of flammable gas), which
had presumably originated diverse jet fires.
Jet fires have been the cause of numerous accidents,
initiating a disastrous sequence of events known as the
‘‘domino effect’’. However, to the best of our knowledge
no survey had ever been performed on the diverse ways in
which jet fires are implicated in these accidents. We
therefore set about to conduct such a report based on
data collected from the Major Hazard Incidents Data
Service (MHIDAS), ARIA, FACTS and Major Accident
Reporting System (MARS) accident databases. Although
most accident databases contain many events registered

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doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2008.01.002
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584 M. Gómez-Mares et al. / Fire Safety Journal 43 (2008) 583–588

under the term ‘‘fire accident’’, few of these reports actually Table 1
detail the fire type (i.e., pool, jet or flash fire). This Specific origin of the accidents involving jet fire
considerably reduced our sample size. Nevertheless, we do
Number of Percent of
not expect that it has a dramatic effect on the trends Specific origin
accidents total
observed. Here, we report the results of our survey, as well
as a series of conclusions derived from the statistical Process plant
analysis of historical data. Pipework 13 15.5
Process vessels 6 7.1
Reactor 5 5.9
2. Accident selection method Unknown 4 4.8
Equipment with flame 1 1.2
All of the aforementioned databases used are European. Heat exchangers 1 1.2
A short description of each is given below. Transport
The MHIDAS is managed by the Safety and Reliability Rail tanker 15 17.9
Directorate (SRD) of the UK Health and Safety Executive. Road tanker 13 15.5
It contains data from accidents that occurred in 95 Pipeline 9 10.7
countries since the beginning of the 20th century. The Storage
information in this database is categorized, thereby Pressurized tanks 6 7.1
facilitating data analysis [2]. Atmospherical pressure tanks 1 1.2
Pipework 1 1.2
The Analyse, Recherche et Information sur les Accidents
(ARIA) database is operated by the Ministère de l’Amén- Loading/unloading
agement du Territoire et de l’Environnement (Ministry of Hose 5 5.9
Road tanker 2 2.4
Regional Planning and Environment) of France. It was
Rail tanker 1 1.2
created in 1992 and contains records of accidents that have Pressurized tanks 1 1.2
occurred in France and in other countries [3].
FACTS is a database for accidents involving hazardous
materials. It was created by TNO in the Netherlands at the No accidents were found for the categories of waste,
end of 1970s. This database comprises three information domestic/commercial or warehouse. The main general
levels: accident table, accident abstract and extended origin was transportation, comprising 44% of the inci-
abstract [4]. dents, followed by process plants, with 36%, loading/
The MARS is a network in which EU member states unloading, with 11%, and storage, with 10%. When the
report industrial accidents using a standard format. It process plant and storage categories were considered
belongs to the Major Accident Hazards Bureau (MAHB) together, they accounted for 45% of the total accidents,
of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and whereas the transport and loading/unloading categories
is accessible online [5]. combined for 55%.
In order to identify the accidents involving a jet fire, a The main specific origins were rail tanker (19%) and
search using the following key words was carried out: jet road tanker (18%), as shown in Table 1. In terms of
fire, torch, flare, ‘‘chalumeau’’, ‘‘jet de feu’’, and other accidents in process plants, a significant percentage (43%)
combinations thereof. Accidents involving ignition of a gas took place in the pipework category. In the transport
jet were also included. The descriptions of each accident category, rail tankers and road tankers were the most
were analysed, classified and selected. All cases involving a frequent origins, representing 40.5% and 35%, respec-
jet fire were included in the analysis, whereas those tively. Concerning storage categories, pressurised tanks
involving only a torch system were disregarded. were the most significant specific origin, accounting for
A total of 84 accidents involving a jet fire were identified 75% of the incidents.
since 1961. Of these accidents, 25% occurred in the 1970s. It is interesting to note that loading/unloading activities
The number of accidents decreased by 8% in the 1980s, were implicated in 11% of jet fires. This percentage is
and has since remained nearly constant. Approximately similar to that obtained for this category in another much
45% of the cases correspond to the last 25 years, and larger survey (5325 events) performed on all types of
another 30% to the last 15 years. accident [6]. The most frequent origin of jet fire accidents
occurring during loading/unloading operations was hose
3. Origin of the accidents breakage, pertaining to 56% of the cases.
Approximately 25% of the accidents occurred in the
As the analysed information came from different least robust equipment (i.e., in pipes and hoses).
sources, the MHIDAS database categories were used to
designate the place or activity in which the accident 4. Material involved
occurred. This database considers seven general origins:
process plant, storage, transport, load/unload, waste, The type of material involved in the accidents was
domestic/commercial, and warehouse. classified as shown in Table 2. In some accidents, more
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M. Gómez-Mares et al. / Fire Safety Journal 43 (2008) 583–588 585

Table 2 37%
Ranking of substances most frequently involved in jet fires 30

Substance Number of accidents % 25 29%

27%

Number of entries
LPG 51 61 20
Hydrogen 10 12
19%
Chemicals 8 10 15 17%
Natural gas 8 10
Oils 7 8 10
Other hydrocarbons 7 8
Ethylene 6 7 5
Propylene 6 7 4%
2%
Gas 3 4 1%
0
Methane 3 4
L AN CT L N NT N S
Naphta 3 4 ICA M A NA OW E T IO IO
N
Acetylene 2 2 AN HU IMP TE
R
KN RUM AC DI
T
CH EX UN ST RE N
Ethylene oxide 2 2 ME IN N T CO
Gasoline 2 2 LE SS
VI
O
O CE
PR
T
SE
UP

than one substance was involved—this is the reason why Fig. 1. General causes.
the percentage sum is greater than 100. Furthermore, the
substances listed for the entries are sometimes referred to
ambiguously (e.g., ‘‘oil’’, ‘‘hydrocarbon’’). As observed in considered together, they account for nearly 50% of the
the Table, LPG was the most frequently reported substance general causes of the accidents.
(61%), followed by hydrogen (12%) and natural gas and
chemicals (10% each). 6. Accident type

5. Causes of the accidents
The following general possible causes were taken into
account: mechanical failure, impact failure, human factor,
instrumental failure, services failure, violent reaction,
external events and upset process conditions. This classi-
fication was taken from MHIDAS.
As many of the cases were taken from other databases,
the classification was based on the information contained
in the corresponding abstracts. The causes of 17% of the
accidents are unknown. Moreover, as the accidents can
have one or more causes, the percentage sum is not equal to
100 (Fig. 1). The same is true for the specific causes, which
are shown in Table 3.
Of the accidents analysed, 37% were caused by
mechanical failure, in which coupling or flange leakage
was the main specific cause. The human factor was the
second general cause of accidents, accounting for 29% of
the cases, followed by impact failure (27%), external events
(19%), and all remaining causes (7%). The general cause
was unknown for 17% of the cases.
The two main contributors to the human factor were
general operations (25%) and procedures (21%). In the
external events category, an external fire was the most
common source (67%). For the impact failure category, the
main cause was ‘‘rail accident’’ (43%). In terms of
instrument failure, it can be seen that the trip-related
failure was the most relevant.
If all causes are taken together as 100%, it is possible to
observe that if mechanical failure and human factor are
Every case considered in this study involved a jet fire, but
it is interesting to know what other events occurred during
the accidents.
MHIDAS categories were again taken as a guide to
classify the cases, whereby the four possible types of
accidents are: loss of containment, explosion, non-jet fire,
and gas cloud. As mentioned above, each case can involve
more than one type of accident, so the percentage sum is
not equal to 100. As seen in Table 4, explosion was the
main type of additional event (56%), followed by other
kinds of fires (27%) and vapour cloud (26%).
The accidents studied generally involved multiple events.
The most frequent set of events was jet fire, explosion, and
loss of containment, which was present in 50% of the cases.
Jet fire, non-jet fire, and loss of containment occurred in
27% of the accidents, followed by jet fire, vapour cloud
and loss of containment, with 26%. The most frequent
event sequences were: loss of containment to jet fire (61%),
jet fire as the last event (51%), and jet fire to explosion/
BLEVE (44%).
7. Human casualties
Human casualties from the accidents can be quantified in
terms of number of deaths, number of injuries and number
of evacuees. In the case of jet fire accidents, it is important
to clarify that casualties can result from the accident in
general or from the jet fire itself.
Of the entries studied, only 65% provide the number of
deaths, 62% provide the number of injuries and 23%
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586 M. Gómez-Mares et al. / Fire Safety Journal 43 (2008) 583–588

Table 3 provide the number of evacuees. As could be expected,

Specific causes of accidents involving a jet fire there were discrepancies among the different databases. In
these cases the highest number reported was used for the
Number of
Specific cause
entries
% % of total survey.
The numbers of deaths, injuries and evacuees were
External eventsa 16 19 grouped into arbitrary blocks of 0, 1–10, 10–100, 101–1000,
External fire 12 66.7 etc. In almost half of the accidents there were no deaths,
External explosion 2 11.1
whereas the largest block of remaining accidents (44%) was
Sabotage or vandalism 2 11.1
Temperature extremes 2 11.1 1–10 deaths. In terms of other casualties, the largest blocks
were 1–10 injuries (42%), and 101–1000 evacuees (26%).
Human 24 29
General operation
However, the majority of casualties should be attributed
6 25.0
Procedures 5 20.8 to other events that occurred in the accidents—essentially
Failure to connect or explosions—rather than to the jet fire itself. In fact, jet fire
disconnect 2 8.3 was only directly linked to human casualties in two of the
Maintenance 2 8.3 cases.
Design error 2 8.3
Failure to isolate or drain
before uncoupling 2 8.3 8. Probability of the diverse sequences: the domino effect
Accidental venting 1 4.2
Draining accident 1 4.2 An event tree was derived by considering the available
Installation error 1 4.2 descriptions for each case (Fig. 2). The probability of
Unknown 2 8.3
occurrence is represented for each branch, and was
Impactb 23 27 obtained from the ratio of the number of accidents to the
Rail accident, no other number of accidents at the previous level.
vehicle 13 43.3
Road accident, no other
Of the accidents studied, 94% began with a loss of
vehicle 7 23.3 containment due to diverse causes (e.g., human error,
Other vehicle 6 20.0 mechanical failure), whereas the remaining 6% began with
Excavating equipment 3 10.0 an explosion. There were two accidents caused by
Heavy object 1 3.3 sabotage, one from each of the aforementioned groups.
Instrument 3 3.5 Analysis of the events that occurred in the accidents upon
Trip related failure 2 66.7 release of flammable material revealed two major trends.
Controller 1 33.3 In 65% of the cases, the release was ignited by a source—
Mechanical 31 37 such as an electrostatic spark or any other type—to form a
Leaking coupling or flange 8 25.8 jet fire. If the jet fire impinged on any equipment, the
Corrosion 3 9.7 probability of an explosion—sometimes a BLEVE—was
Hose failure 3 9.7
Overheating
significant (this happened in 23 cases). If there was no
3 9.7
Other metallurgical failure 2 6.5 impingement, the jet fire was usually the last step in the
Material fatigue 2 6.5 accident and was ultimately extinguished. Thus, the typical
Leaking or passing valve 2 6.5 sequences were: loss of containment to jet fire, and loss of
Weld failure 2 6.5 containment to jet fire to explosion/BLEVE.
Overpressure 1 3.2
In the databases, the explosion of a tank containing a
Relief valve failure 1 3.2
Unknown 4 12.9 flammable material—as, for example, propane—subjected
to flame impingement is usually referred to as a ‘‘BLEVE’’.
Unknown 14 100 16.7
Others
In fact, different criteria have been used to define this type
3 100 3.5
of explosion. Due to the lack of precise information on the
a
Two events have two specific causes, thus the percentage of total is reported explosions, in this work these explosions have
16  100/84.
b been indicated as ‘‘explosion/BLEVE’’.
Seven cases have two specific causes.
In 28% of the cases, the release created a vapour cloud
that led to a flash fire and, eventually, to an explosion. In
the case of a flammable cloud, flash fires will always exist in
the presence of an ignition source. However, the occurrence
Table 4 of an explosion with significant mechanical effects essen-
Types of events present in accidents involving a jet fire tially depends on the mass of flammable material in the
Type of event Number of entries %
cloud and on the existence of partially confined or
obstructed regions in the cloud. Nevertheless, the fire or
Explosion 47 56 the explosion in the accidents which have been considered
Non-jet fire 23 27 were followed by a jet fire—originated by the ignition of
Vapor cloud 22 26 the initial release or by one or more jet fires from pipes
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Gómez-Mares et al. / Fire Safety Journal 43 (2008) 583–588 587

Entries Probability
EXPLOSION/
FIRE BLEVE JET FIRE 3 0.036
FIRE
5 3 3 3
0.063 0.600 1.000 1.000

JET FIRE 1 0.012

2 1
0.400 0.500
BLEVE 1 0.012
1
0.500
24 0.286
24
0.471
LOSS OF
EVENTS CONTAINMENT J E T F IR E E X P L O S IO N 2 0.024
84 79 51 23 2
0.940 0.646 0.451 0.087
BLEVE 21 0.250
21
0.913
NON-JET
4 0.048
FIRE
4 4
0.078 1.000
EXPLOSION /
1 0.012
FIRE
1
0.111
VAPOUR
VCE J E T F IR E 6 0.071
CLOUD
22 9 9 6
0.278 0.409 1.000 0.667
BLEVE 2 0.024
2
0.222
FLASH
J E T F IR E 8 0.095
FIRE
13 12 8
0.591 0.923 0.667

EXPLOSION 4 0.048
4
0.333
POOL EXPLOSION/
JET FIRE 1 0.012
FIRE BLEVE
1 1 1
0.077 1.000 1.000
VESSEL
J E T F IR E 1 0.012
EXPLOSION
1 1
0.013 1.000
EXPLOSION JET FIRE 3 0.036
5 4 3
0.060 0.800 0.750

EXPLOSION/BLEVE 1 0.012
1
0.250

F IR E B A L L J E T F IR E BLEVE 1 0.012
1 1 1
0.200 1.000 1.000

Fig. 2. Event tree.

 ARTICLE IN PRESS
588 M. Gómez-Mares et al. / Fire Safety Journal 43 (2008) 583–588
broken by the explosion—which, in turn, could give rise to
further explosions. The typical sequences found were: loss
of containment to vapour cloud to vapour cloud explosion
to jet fire, and loss of containment to vapour cloud to flash
fire to jet fire, sometimes with a subsequent explosion/
BLEVE.
A typical sequence found in transportation begins with
the impact from a derailment or a road accident, which
generates a leak on a rail car or a tank car, usually in the
pipework. The release is then ignited and a jet fire impinges
on the tank or on another adjacent tank. The opening of a
relief valve provides a new jet fire, which in turn, can
impinge on the surface of a tank. A few minutes to several
hours later, the tank explodes.
Comparison of the different sequences revealed that half
of the jet fires induced the domino effect, whereas in the
other half the jet fire was extinguished before any
secondary event could occur. In practically 90% of the
domino effect cases there was an explosion, usually of a
vessel. This is especially frequent in transportation
accidents, whereby jet fires from broken pipes or safety
valves often impinge on a tank, eventually causing it to
explode.
Thus, according to the data from the event tree, if there
is a jet fire, the probability of another accident occurring is
0.49, and the probability of an explosion is 0.44. Conse-
quently, the probability of the jet fire being the last step of
the accident is 0.51, so 50% of jet fire accidents will
undergo at least one additional event with much more
severe effects and consequences. This must be considered as
a conservative value, due to the fact that these accidents are
under-reported in the databases.
9. Conclusions
Fire accidents are the most frequent major accidents in
industrial installations and in the transportation of
hazardous materials. Amongst them, jet fires occur with a
certain frequency, which cannot be quantified exactly due
to the fact that accident databases often do not specify the
type of fire. Furthermore, even if this information was
available, the frequency of jet fires would be under-
represented, as jet fires per se are not severe accidents: if
they occur without major consequences, they probably go
unregistered.
The intrinsic effects of a jet fire cover short distances as
compared with those associated with explosions or toxic
releases. However, if a jet fire occurs in a relatively compact
installation it will probably affect equipment (e.g., a pipe or
a tank) that may subsequently fail and ultimately amplify
the scale of the accident. This domino effect is usually
responsible for the consequences of accidents that involve a
jet fire.
Analysis of the sequences involved in the diverse
accidents enabled us to construct an associated event tree.
In 27% of the cases, the sequence was loss of containment
to jet fire to explosion. In 11% it was loss of containment
to vapour cloud explosion to jet fire. In transportation, a
typical sequence begins after a derailment or a road
accident, leading to a leak in the pipework, a jet fire and
tank explosion, including a fireball. In addition, it can be
derived that when a jet fire occurs, in approximately 50%
of the cases, it will cause another event with severe effects.
We therefore conclude that despite the relatively short
damage radius of jet fires, they must be considered as a
crucial step in the initiation of a train of events, known as
the domino effect, leading to larger accidents.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Spanish Ministerio de Educación
y Ciencia for funding (Project no. CTQ2005-06231 and a
doctoral grant, FPU, for M. G-M).
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