Out of scale disasters happen rarely, but when they happen they are difficult to manage because of our inability to respond with present technology.

Our fire trucks have not enough water; our public hydrants deliver not enough volume or pressure.

Hazardeous facilities fixed fire suppression systems should be able to extinguish large scale fires, but history tells us this is often not the case.

Explosions make matters worse. Hazardous facilities run this risk and we witnessed what happened at Buncefield, where the fixed fire water system was damaged and 22 tanks and seven bunds were involved in the fire.

Large fires may be accompanied with toxic smoke and closure of critical infrastructure, including rail, highways and (air)ports.

Assume a crude oil tank fire, caused by a leaking valve or maintenance activity. An explosion rendered the fixed fire system inoperable. Extinguishing a midsized oil tank requires about 40,000 litres of water/foam mixture a minute for 60 minutes, while requiring water throws of over 100 metres and 20 metres high.

Fire brigades are generally not yet equipped for out of scale fires. What now?

Mobile large capacity fire-fighting systems may be an answer, but only if they are able to quickly transport large volumes of water from an open water source and over long distances while delivering sufficient pressure and volume at the monitor. Using large diameter hoses minimises pressure loss.

The trend towards the use of large volume mobile systems is driven by the ever growing size of our hazardous facilities.

Mobile systems served the community well at the Buncefield and Dalian oil depot fires and cooled the rods in Fukushima. 

Mobile systems offer a solution and are moving to the frontbench. Should they?

This presentation explores today's mobile systems to manage “out of scale” events.