Fire Impact Tool- Measuring the impact of fire suppression operations on the environment
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2021

In Sweden the responsibility for environmental damage when emergency responders are called to an incident is increasingly focussing on the responders. The problem is that most incident response personnel do not have the training and expertise to assess the environmental consequences of their suppression operations. The Fire Impact Tool was developed for training responders about how fire effluents and suppression media affect air, surface/groundwater and soil. The tool has three interdependent parts: fire models (for vehicles and enclosures), an environmental risk assessment (ERA) model for local impacts, and a life cycle assessment (LCA) model for global impacts. Users can create two scenarios that are compared with a reference case in which responders arrive at the incident and prevent the fire from spreading beyond the vehicle or enclosure but do not suppress the fire. The Fire Impact Tool is not intended for use during an actual fire incident. This work does not answer every question for every possible fire scenario, but it does provide a framework for deeper, broader, more comprehensive training and pre-planning. This is a necessary step toward a future in which responders are prepared to make informed decisions about firefighting strategies and tactics that include environmental consequences.

Decision support tool

Pre-planning

Vehicle fires

Compartment fires

Environmental risk assessment

Training

Environment

Lifecycle assessment

Modelling

Suppression

Författare

Francine Amon

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Jonatan Gehandler

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Robert McNamee

Brandskyddslaget

Margaret McNamee

Lunds universitet

Azra Vilic

Student vid Chalmers

Fire Safety Journal

0379-7112 (ISSN)

Vol. 120 103071

Ämneskategorier

Miljöledning

Miljöanalys och bygginformationsteknik

Annan samhällsbyggnadsteknik

DOI

10.1016/j.firesaf.2020.103071

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2021-07-21