The importance of education in re mitigation

Risk Management The importance of education in fi re mitigation

TO LIMIT THE LOSSES OF A MINE-SITE FIRE, PLANT OPERATORS SHOULD KNOW HOW TO RESPOND WHEN AN INFERNO HITS. A FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM IS NOT THE ONLY CONSIDERATION.

Fire management in the mining industry is not only imperative for health and safety reasons, but also to preserve the viability of mining operations.

Fires lead to machinery breakdowns, which leads to downtime and reduced productivity. The cost of damages is also immense.

With more than 40 years of experience behind the company, Fire Forensics has forged a reputation for its astute understanding of arguably the world’s most dangerous adversary.

It’s the company’s passion and obligation to arrive on site to determine how and why a blaze occurred.

It’s also Fire Forensics’ mission to better educate mining operators about the ongoing risk of mine fires and how they can be mitigated.

When an employee is trained in how to operate a mining vehicle, they would gain an understanding in the plant’s fire suppression and emergency stop systems.

Fitted with heat detection sensors, fire suppression systems activate when the temperature at a relevant part of the vehicle reaches a certain threshold, indicating a fire.

The fire suppression system automatically sprays an extinguishing agent in order to control the fire. These could be powder, liquid or gas depending on the plant.

However, while fire suppression plays a critical role in operator safety, the systems are not expected to extinguish large infernos.

“A lot of machinery has fire suppression systems fitted. And these are often automatic, but also have manual controls as well,” Fire Forensics founder and senior fire investigator James Munday told Safe to Work.

“But the thing to be aware of with fire suppression is that it is what it says, it’s suppression not necessarily extinction. So it’s designed to hold the fire to a small size.

“It will extinguish a small fire if the fire is of the right kind in the right place. But it’s designed to hold fires to a

Refresher training ensures operators remain one step ahead of a fi re.

small size long enough for life safety. That’s its function.”

Munday said fire suppression systems can also be limited by their location.

“The automatic fire suppression systems rely very much on fires occurring in predictable ways and in predictable places,” he said.

“So they can put the detection in the right place, and the suppression equipment in the right place.

“And the problem with that, obviously, is that if a fire occurs somewhere else, then the suppression system either might not detect it, or detect it too late when it has grown to a point where it can’t be controlled.

“Or it may detect it, but then be unable to suppress it because the fire is in the wrong place compared with the discharge system.”

Munday used the example of an engine bay. Here, the discharge systems are often mounted at a high level around the top of the engine bay.

But if the fire is at the lower end of the engine bay, the discharge might not be able reach the area where the fire is occurring.

Munday said fire suppression systems also often have a limited discharge time, with typically 60 to 90 seconds’ worth of discharge for a large machine.

If a fire suppression system has done its job, it will have stifled the fire, but another intervention is needed to ensure control of the situation.

It could be a situation where the fire could reignite after the fire suppression system is exhausted. Fuel could still be leaking or an electrical ignition source might still be present.

This is where the emergency stop button comes to the fore.

“If the emergency stop is used it shuts down the engine, which will stop the supply of high-pressure fuel. It will stop pressurising hydraulic systems. So if there’s a leak from a hose, that leak will diminish. It won’t necessarily completely stop, but it will certainly diminish,” Munday said.

“And it will shut off a lot of the electrical circuits so that we don’t have electrical energy still available to reignite materials.

“We find if the operator has used the emergency stop, it’s often more effective in putting the fire out or allowing the fire to go out, than just relying on the fire suppression system.”

Using both fire suppression systems and the emergency stop to extinguish fires is the ideal intervention, however mining operators are not always aware of this.

Mining companies could be losing thousands, if not millions, of dollars in damages and downtime, when there’s some simple measures that can mitigate a fire’s consequences.

“In a lot of instances, we find that machine operators are not being given refresher training on emergency stops. When they do their initial training, they’re shown an emergency stop. They’re shown what it does in terms of shutting the truck down, but there’s not always ongoing training,” Munday said.

Munday suggested mining companies should consider implementing periodic refresher training to ensure operators can be one step ahead of the fire.

“It’s about running through the basics of the emergency stop – where it is, what it does, and then perhaps expanding on what it does and how that impacts on fire safety,” he said. “Because a lot of the time the emergency stop is explained in terms of mechanical safety – if the gearbox fails or you have a tire blowout, you hit the emergency stop and it shuts the thing down. But I don’t think a lot of people talk about the emergency stop’s effect on fire.”

Munday recognises the additional risks associated with using the emergency stop for mobile vehicles.

For example, if a haul truck catches fire in the middle of a haul road, the operator should try and pull over if it is safe to do so before engaging the fire suppression system, if this is a manual process, and hitting the emergency stop.

Implementing refresher training and educating operators to be smart about their fire response has the potential to save mining companies a lot of money.

“To the companies, training can play a very important role, because it can limit the fire loss quite significantly, which can make for a much smaller rebuild cost rather than a complete machine replacement or repair cost,” Munday said.

“Also, from an investigative point of view, it can make the investigation quicker and simpler. Which again, is a saving for them. A quicker, simpler investigation means we’re more likely to give them a definitive answer. And it will cost them less.”

A burnt engine bay.