Formalized Risk Assessments
How they aid in the prevention of catastrophic industrial fires
and explosionsRyan Green3 March 2017
ObjectivesRationalPurpose of a risk assessmentAdvantages of a
Risk assessmentHow to conduct a risk assessmentWho should be
involved in the risk assessment and their rolesHow risk assessments
could have prevented past losses2005 Texas City Plant explosion2010
Deep Water Horizon explosionHow a risk assessment can prevent
future disasters
Rational
NFPA Research indicates:U.S. fire departments responded to an
estimated average of 37,000 fires at industrial or manufacturing
properties each year, with annual losses from these fires estimated
at 18 civilian deaths, 279 civilian injures, and $1 billion in
direct property damage.Structure fires accounted for 20% of the
fires, but 47% of civilian deaths, 82% of civilian injuries, and
69% of direct property damage.Heating equipment (14% of total) and
shop tools and industrial equipment (also 14% of total) were the
leading causes of structure fires in industrial or manufacturing
facilities.A mechanical failure or malfunction was a factor
contributing to the ignition of one in four structure fires (24%)
in industrial or manufacturing properties, accounting for 23% of
civilian injuries and 21% of direct property damage.
3
Purpose of a Risk AssessmentWhat can go wrong that could lead to
an exposure or hazard?How likely is it to happen?If it happens,
what are the consequences?
An organization is responsible for identifying hazards, and the
risks involved, and communicating them with employees. Fire risk
assessment is an important step in a safety management program as
it provides the organization with a clear picture of what risk the
facility is exposed to4
Advantages of a Risk AssessmentIdentifies fire, explosion, and
other safety hazards that could lead to injury or loss of
life.Quantifies the risk.Develops, evaluates, and prioritizes
prevention, and protection strategies.Measures the effectiveness of
the strategies.Maximizes production by developing a safety culture
and increasing moral. Decreases costs due to loss of property and
production, law suits, and high insurance premiums.
Who Should be Involved, and Their RollsSafety committee:
Employees, managers, safety, and maintenanceRisk management
consultantFire protection engineerFire inspector and local fire
department
Within an industrial work place, a well formed safety committee
should be involved in a comprehensive risk assessment.
Additionally, a local fire inspector and fire department, a risk
management consultant, and/or a fire protection engineer may be
involved. A safety committee should be involved as they are in the
front lines of overall safety within their industry. A well-formed
safety committee should have a high percentage of its work force,
hourly workers, and managers. Front-line workers should be in a
safety committee because have the most experience with how a task
is performed every day and can help identify fire hazards that
managers may overlook. The frontline employees are key components
to identifying potential and even hidden fire hazards and
communicating them to management. Additionally, an experienced and
enthusiastic employee can quantify the probability of the
occurrence of a fire. He can draw off of his experience the
potential consequences of not mitigating the risk. The managers in
the safety committee meetings are excellent resources as well, and
should provide strong support to the safety committee. A manager
may have the experience of creating a risk assessment or writing
strategic plans. Furthermore, a manager may have spent a great
amount of time as a frontline employee, and could possibly identify
the risks that even an experienced employee would miss. This is
because an employee often becomes complacent in their work areas,
and sometimes fails to identify significant risks. A new set of
eyes, with years of experience would easier identify the
risks.Managers, along with, safety consultants, an/or fire
protection engineers would be the best resources for developing and
evaluating alternative prevention and protection strategies, as
well as measuring the results to determine the effectiveness. The
right consultant can recommend fire prevention and protection
strategies, manage safety committee meetings, prepare plans, and
draw maps, and assist in determining the effectiveness. A fire
protection engineer is a valuable resource in developing protection
and prevention engineering controls.Lastly, the local fire
department is a vital tool to a comprehensive risk assessment,
especially in determining how effective a plan will be. In some
jurisdictions, a firefighter can complete an inspection to
determine if the fire risk assessment is appropriate and adequate.
They can also ensure compliance with fire and building codes. More
importantly, firefighters can conduct property fire safety and
pre-incident surveys, as they are the subject matter experts. They
may help identify building strengths, weaknesses, avenues of fire
spread, important features within the building that may inhibit or
promote fire spread, and building construction techniques.
Additionally, they can become familiarized with the lay out of the
building, and manufacturing process. These surveys can help a risk
assessment by providing information to minimize the deficiencies,
and maximize the strengths.6
How to Conduct a Risk Assessment
Risk ManagementRisk EvaluationDetermine ConsequencesQuantify
ScenariosDevelop Event TreesDevelop Initiating Events for
ScenariosDefine SystemDefine Objectives
Define the assessment objectives: Clearly state objective,
scope, purpose, and damage states that are of interest. Apply risk
perception concerns. Define the system: Understand the
human-machine interfaces, the environmental conditions, the
operating conditions, the mechanical and electrical designs, and
other important aspects.Develop event scenarios: Use a hazard
analysis to identify the events that present the hazards of most
concern. A fault tree can refine how the event could occur, and a
FMEA can give specific failure information about particular
components that led to that event. Develop Event Trees: Functional
event trees can be developed that describes these hazard event
scenarios. The Event trees show the relationship between the
initiation of the event and the hazard controls that must be
challenged.Quantify Scenarios: Calculate the failure probability of
each event.Determine Consequences: Cost benefit analysis, number of
people injured or killed, environmental impact, or loss of
productivity.Risk Evaluation: Calculate risk and what scenarios are
riskier.Risk Management: Systematically decide how to disposition
the risks that have been identified in the risk assessment.7
How Risk Assessments Could Have Prevented Past Losses
2005 Texas City Plant Explosion
At approximately 1:20 p.m. on March 23, 2005, a series of
explosions demolished the BP Texas City refinery. The explosions
occurred during the restarting of a hydrocarbon iso meri zation
unit, when a distillation tower flooded with hydrocarbons become
over pressurized, causing a geyser-like release from the vent stack
(U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007). A
spark from an idling truck nearby triggered the explosion, killing
fifteen and injuring 180 people.8
2005 Texas City Plant ExplosionYears of cost-cutting, poor
worker training and a seriously deficient safety culture left the
plant vulnerable to catastrophe. Through three decades, over forty
workers have been killed at the Texas City Refinery.Investigations
after the 2005 explosion found while there had been an emphasis on
personal safety, there was a gaping deficiency in process safety
(Elkind, Whitford, andBurke, 2011). The Texas City disaster was
caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of
the BP Corporation. The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation
Board also found that BP executives made spending cuts without
assessing the safety impact of those decisions.Following a
formalized risk assessment, could have prevented the disaster by
identifying hazards, quantifying the risk, and developing
prevention, and protection strategies.
How this Program Could have Affected Past Losses2010 Deep Water
Horizon
In 2008, BP reported in a strategy document, that process-safety
major hazards and risks are not fully understood by engineering or
line operating personnel. Insufficient awareness is leading to
missed signals that precede incidents and response after incidents,
both of which increases the potential for and severity of
process-safety related incidents. This lead to the creation of an
Operating Management System to integrate safety into the company
and correct deficiencies. Unfortunately this plan took years to
accomplish, and was extremely difficult to gain the buy in of
management and employees.In 2009, OSHA issued violations to BP for
failure to abate hazards in Texas City, and added on hundreds of
new willful violations, totaling 829 violations (Elkind, 2011).
This made it clear that BP had not yet made the progress in system
safety that was needed.In 2010, BPs largest catastrophe devastated
the Gulf Coast when their oil rig, Deep Water Horizon exploded,
killing eleven people, and spilling 210 million gallons of oil into
the ocean. Although there were several human factors and hundreds
of safety errors involved, British Petroliums post incident fault
tree found that:Well integrity was not established or failed;
Hydrocarbons entered the well undetected and well control was lost;
Hydrocarbons ignited on the Deep Water Horizon;And the blowout
preventer failed. 10
2010 Deep Water HorizonAccording to theDeep Water Horizon Final
Report "This disaster was preventable if existing progressive
guidelines and practices been followed", but BP Did not possess a
functional safety culture.As a result of a cascade of deeply flawed
failure and signal analysis, decision-making, communication, and
organizational - managerial processes, safety was compromised to
the point that the blowout occurred with catastrophic effects.This
disaster could have been prevented by early detection and
elimination of hazards and their inherent risks, through risk
assessment methods.
How A Risk Assessment can Prevent Future DisastersRisk
assessments prevent the normalization of hazards and misperceptions
of their risks by quantifying the risk and determining their
consequences. Risk assessments can help an organization identify
and correct hazards and substandard work practices before a
catastrophic event happens.Risk assessments reduce injury, loss of
life, and loss of property by identifying, mitigating, and
eliminating hazards.
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