Arnhem pool fire 2013

 The fire started at approximately 17.00hrs on 18th

January 2013 and is thought to have occurred as a result
of the rupture of a heat exchanger which allowed the
release of a mixture of hot crude oil and natural gas under
at an initial pressure of 43 bar. The gas and oil mixture
then ignited generating a fire plume that rose to
approximately 30 metres high.
 The first call to the fire service was received at 17:02:53
and their arrival at the scene was just over 7 minutes
later at 17:10:15.
 A representative of the facility’s operator indicated that a total
of 20m3 of crude oil was contained within the storage tanks and
that approximately 5m3 was involved in the fire.
 The fire started at about 5.00pm and continued to burn
intensely for about 10 minutes. During this period the flame
plume was initially 30m high and reduced to about 10m high.
After this initial period the fire died down significantly to form
a number of smaller separate pool fires. after about 18 minutes
of burning; at which time only small pools of flaming remained.
 There appears to have been little sustained direct flame
impingement on the external cladding of the building.
However, the cladding would have been subject to very
high levels of radiant heat flux from the fire plume and
this has been estimated to be of the order of 24kW/m2 .
This is approximately double the 12.6kW/m2 that is
normally used as a basis for design under UK Building
Regulations.
 Ignition and sustained flaming at the junction of the roof
with the PUR parapet panels occurred after approximately
8 minutes and this is consistent with the radiant heat flux
on the roof and wall significantly exceeding 12.6kW/m2 .
At the intensity of radiation received, some surface
flaming of the cladding panels occurred but this ceased
after approximately 30s (presumably after the surface
coating had burned away). There was otherwise no
evidence of self-sustaining flaming from the IPN panel
surface or at joints between panels.
Thank you