Refinery Fire
- Thread starter Rolfman
- Start date
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I've got refinery comms on 462.7625 and 461.5000
Out of the area questions...
Hey guys, I'm in South East PA and I work at a refinery, and I'm a FF so this post caught my eye. Do you have the name of the refinery? Do you know whats burning? A unit or tankage ? Was there an explosion reported or felt in the area? And is this job covered by one of the streams on www.scanamerica.us?
Thanks for any info or updates, hope the injured have a speedy recovery.
Tom
Hey guys, I'm in South East PA and I work at a refinery, and I'm a FF so this post caught my eye. Do you have the name of the refinery? Do you know whats burning? A unit or tankage ? Was there an explosion reported or felt in the area? And is this job covered by one of the streams on www.scanamerica.us?
Thanks for any info or updates, hope the injured have a speedy recovery.
Tom
qlajlu
Silent Key
For those here, the Refinery uses LTR trunking. Most (90+%) of their comms are on 461.7875
Thye have video of the ignition. Looks like a furnace started it. Now trying to "save" the video before it is destroyed.
qlajlu
Silent Key
DELCOLHFC, here are links to two other TV stations here that have stories on this situation. I'm afraid you won't get much useful information because they pretty well just play up the dramatic nature of what is going on. I can tell you that the fire started at approximately 4:30 pm (MST). It's now 10:40 pm and according to the scanners they are still on scene because the situation remains volatile, which I'm sure you already knew would be the case.
If we can be of any more help to you, just ask.
KUTV News and Video
KCPX News and Video
EDIT TO ADD: Just heard them ask for help breaking down a hydrant line, so maybe they are starting to wrap up.
ADDITIONAL EDIT: Apparently they are breaking down some hose lines so they can relocate equipment, not to wrap up.
If we can be of any more help to you, just ask.
KUTV News and Video
KCPX News and Video
EDIT TO ADD: Just heard them ask for help breaking down a hydrant line, so maybe they are starting to wrap up.
ADDITIONAL EDIT: Apparently they are breaking down some hose lines so they can relocate equipment, not to wrap up.
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Thanks again for the updates. Sounds like some serious injuries, working in this industry thats something you hate hearing about. Fixed roof tank fires can be a challenge at best and if the fixed faom injection standpipes are damaged next to impossible to put out. Pumping away the product and vessel/exposure cooling are the biggies. I'll have to check back in the morning to see if any more is known about those injured and if they have any clue as to what touched it off.
By the way, what the heck is it with the road names out there? At first I thought I was reading something wrong or it was a typo. Around here we tend to actually name our roads with..........names
By the way, what the heck is it with the road names out there? At first I thought I was reading something wrong or it was a typo. Around here we tend to actually name our roads with..........names
AlmostHandy
Member
HA! I hated the way they planed their street names when I lived out there.
I lived in the Provo/Orem area, some 10 years ago.
It seems that every town, has a "State Street" that runs north/south, and a "Center Street" that runs east/west. (Nearly) every address in town will have two direction indicators, to tell you which quadrant of the town it's located in. So, all the streets that ran north/south on the east side of State street, are 100 East, 200 East, 300 East. etc. On the west side, it's 100 West, 200 west. 300 west. All of the streets that run east/west have north or south designators, depending on which side of center street they're on.
Granted, there are some neighborhoods with "normal" themed street names, (The "Tree" streets, like Oak, Elm, and Sycamore, etc.), but they're RARE.
It's not hard to get used to, and if you have that "Internal compass" in your head (some people don't, you know them, they give directions with landmarks), it's not hard to get around, it's just annoying as hell.
And you know, as bad as all of that was, Colorado was worse with it's "Alphabet Soup" and that 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 road nonsense.
"Where do you live?"
"Oh, over on Jay and a Quarter Road.".
wtf?
I know right where that refinery is too. We used to drive by it on our way to Logan. We used to make a point to wait until we got to Bountiful for gas, because it was cheaper than it was in the city.
I lived in the Provo/Orem area, some 10 years ago.
It seems that every town, has a "State Street" that runs north/south, and a "Center Street" that runs east/west. (Nearly) every address in town will have two direction indicators, to tell you which quadrant of the town it's located in. So, all the streets that ran north/south on the east side of State street, are 100 East, 200 East, 300 East. etc. On the west side, it's 100 West, 200 west. 300 west. All of the streets that run east/west have north or south designators, depending on which side of center street they're on.
Granted, there are some neighborhoods with "normal" themed street names, (The "Tree" streets, like Oak, Elm, and Sycamore, etc.), but they're RARE.
It's not hard to get used to, and if you have that "Internal compass" in your head (some people don't, you know them, they give directions with landmarks), it's not hard to get around, it's just annoying as hell.
And you know, as bad as all of that was, Colorado was worse with it's "Alphabet Soup" and that 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 road nonsense.
"Where do you live?"
"Oh, over on Jay and a Quarter Road.".
wtf?
I know right where that refinery is too. We used to drive by it on our way to Logan. We used to make a point to wait until we got to Bountiful for gas, because it was cheaper than it was in the city.
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qlajlu
Silent Key
I hauled petroleum products for over 20 years (super tanker). I've delivered raw product and taken refined product out of this refinery more times than you can count. I don't know a lot about fighting fires, but the last I heard was that they are pumping foam into the tank and apparently it will float to the top and snuff out the fire.
I also heard mention several times at the beginning of this incident of a floating roof tank. I don't know if it was in reference to this tank or not. Would they station a "deck gun" (for lack of the official term) on the top of an adjoining tank to spray water? Could that be what they had refrence to? I dunno.
Hey, it isn't us! It's the rest of the world that is screwed up.DELCOLHFC said:By the way, what the heck is it with the road names out there? At first I thought I was reading something wrong or it was a typo. Around here we tend to actually name our roads with..........names
I hauled petroleum products for over 20 years (super tanker). I've delivered raw product and taken refined product out of this refinery more times than you can count. I don't know a lot about fighting fires, but the last I heard was that they are pumping foam into the tank and apparently it will float to the top and snuff out the fire.
Yep, thats pretty much how it works. You inject the foam solution (Foam concentrate + water in the proper ratio = Foam solution) the water part sinks and the "foam" floats on top and eventually covers the surface of the oil preventing the flammable vapors from leaving the liquid oil to feed the fire. The other option is to drop the solution in from above some tanks have "foam chambers" around the top supplied by fixed standpipes, or in the case of an open topped tank (blown off roof or sunken floating roof) the solution can be applied with master streams from "deck" or "deluge" guns or elevated master streams (ladders, snorkels, towers, squirts....). The big trick is to NOT flow ANY foam or water onto the fire itself until you have the ability to flow the required amount times 3 (for 'insurance' if the situation escalates) in as short of a time span as possible. This is because all that water will sink and when the heat from the burning surface makes it's way down to said water it will flash to steam and increase in volume by about 1600 times, this causes an eruption called a boilover and you never want to see one! Tank fires require hours of cooling exposures and outer tank skins while all the foam equipment is assembled and set up, then the application begins and within minutes the fire dies out.
I also heard mention several times at the beginning of this incident of a floating roof tank. I don't know if it was in reference to this tank or not. Would they station a "deck gun" (for lack of the official term) on the top of an adjoining tank to spray water? Could that be what they had refrence to? I dunno.
The tank shown looked to be a fixed roof, however some tanks do have an internal floating roof, so it may of had one. I would hope they would refrain from getting on top of exposure tanks in this type of situation, that could lead to very bad things. Most times decent flows can be maintained using multiple 'deck guns' given adequate water supply (supposed to be engineered into process areas & storage facilities, but we know how that sometimes goes....) of course the amount needed depends on the fire load and number/proximity/volitility of the exposures. Some where here at work we have an ariel shot from a tank fire back in the early 80's with 17 master streams in service, pretty awsome given the relatively small area involved.
Yep, thats pretty much how it works. You inject the foam solution (Foam concentrate + water in the proper ratio = Foam solution) the water part sinks and the "foam" floats on top and eventually covers the surface of the oil preventing the flammable vapors from leaving the liquid oil to feed the fire. The other option is to drop the solution in from above some tanks have "foam chambers" around the top supplied by fixed standpipes, or in the case of an open topped tank (blown off roof or sunken floating roof) the solution can be applied with master streams from "deck" or "deluge" guns or elevated master streams (ladders, snorkels, towers, squirts....). The big trick is to NOT flow ANY foam or water onto the fire itself until you have the ability to flow the required amount times 3 (for 'insurance' if the situation escalates) in as short of a time span as possible. This is because all that water will sink and when the heat from the burning surface makes it's way down to said water it will flash to steam and increase in volume by about 1600 times, this causes an eruption called a boilover and you never want to see one! Tank fires require hours of cooling exposures and outer tank skins while all the foam equipment is assembled and set up, then the application begins and within minutes the fire dies out.
I also heard mention several times at the beginning of this incident of a floating roof tank. I don't know if it was in reference to this tank or not. Would they station a "deck gun" (for lack of the official term) on the top of an adjoining tank to spray water? Could that be what they had refrence to? I dunno.
The tank shown looked to be a fixed roof, however some tanks do have an internal floating roof, so it may of had one. I would hope they would refrain from getting on top of exposure tanks in this type of situation, that could lead to very bad things. Most times decent flows can be maintained using multiple 'deck guns' given adequate water supply (supposed to be engineered into process areas & storage facilities, but we know how that sometimes goes....) of course the amount needed depends on the fire load and number/proximity/volitility of the exposures. Some where here at work we have an ariel shot from a tank fire back in the early 80's with 17 master streams in service, pretty awsome given the relatively small area involved.
qlajlu
Silent Key
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