Fire drill reduces the risk of accidents

What happens if a fire starts in a cistern or if we are flooded? How long can we manage without electricity? These are some of the questions that are now being investigated by Port of Södertälje, the rescue services, the Environment Office, Inter Terminals ODEC, St1, AGA and Kemetyl.

Consequential effects may occur during an accident as a result of the accident’s location and proximity, called domino effects. To identify these, and prevent or reduce the consequences of a major accident, have now been implemented a ’domino effect’ inquiry, and part of the investigation involves practical exercises.

- The risk of an accident at the Oil Terminal is low, says Hans Mårtensson, depot manager of St1 in Södertälje. But it´s still important to continuously work on preventive measures and practice with real life events that could occur in order to limit the consequences of an accident.

The only large cistern fire that occurred in Sweden was in Nynäshamn in 1956, but even if this sort of accident is rare, it is important to practice. On the 29th of September a mock tank fire exercise at the fuel depot in Södertälje was conducted, together with Extinguishing Central AB, and SMC. SMC is a contingency organization which provides knowledge and equipment that can be rapidly deployed at very large fires or industrial accidents within the oil industry. During the exercise the evacuation alarm was sounded at the Oil Terminal. The local rescue services attended to a person who pretended to be injured and then commenced cooling the surrounding cistern to avoid it being ignited by the heat. Then came the SMC with their artillery of mobile devices and "turned off" the tank which in theory was burning.

- The exercise went well and it helps us to become even better if the unthinkable happens, concludes Hans. We have gone through the details and we can hone in and look at new angles of the exercise. I am grateful for the talented employees we have at Port of Södertälje, Södertörns firefighting unions, Stockholm fire service, St1 and other players at the Oil Terminal.