Hinder för omedelbar och effektiv räddningsinsats : En analys gällande bränder i industri-, reparation- eller service/tillverkningsbyggnader som handhar gasflaskor

In March 2012, a fire began in an industrial property in Kiruna. At the arrival of the fire brigade, the fire was relatively confined. Unsuccessful attempts to find and retrieve all compressed gas cylinders, called for an establishment of an initial cordon (exclusion zone) and evacuation zone, due to risk of explosion. The fire could not be confined within the initial enclosure or fought down, despite the brigades attempts to cool the fire. The rescue operation ended nearly 39 hours after the fire departments arrival. The property and all the vehicles inside, were perished in the fire. The purpose of this report is to investigate if these course of event is an issue in a national perspective. The question is if similar situations are occurring frequently and if it had been possible to salvage anything in those fires, if there had not been any gas cylinders to consider. Since adequate location of the cylinders is essential to enable a removal in case of fire, a review if it is possibility for the Swedish fire departments to state requirements of the handling and arrangement of gas cylinders, and if so, to what extent. Whether there may be any difficulties for the persons in question to understand their obligations and responsibility in relation to handling of gas cylinders, is also reviewed. Laws, frameworks and enactments along with guidelines and manuals from authorities and gas suppliers do not present an overly straight forward result. The fire department can stipulate handling of gas cylinders, containing flammable gases, by the delegation by the law concerning flammable substances and explosives, but if the gas cylinder is not containing a flammable gas, the task to ensure safety is not very easy. The law for ensuring the work environment, Arbetsmiljölagen, and the corresponding enactments, include enactments regarding all gas cylinders (even those not containing flammables gases), however that is not within the fire departments area of justice. It is very likely to find gas cylinders in fires involving industries and repair shops. It is thus essential that operational staff called to deal with fires in these kind of buildings, are aware of, that the incident may involve gas cylinders exposed to heat or fire. A cylinder that have been exposed to heat, even briefly, is a potential hazard because of the risk of expanding vapour explosion or catastrophic container failure. The initial risk assessed exclusion zone must therefore be set-up and everyone, including the fire department staff must withdraw from it. From the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, MSB, statistics from 2005 to 2011 were gathered. The statistics indicates 34 fires, where the presence of gas cylinders caused a delay in the fire departments effort to control the fire. In many cases, this meant that the buildings perished in the fire. In addition, the problem seems to be nationwide, where small municipalities are effected with similar frequency as larger once. The conclusion is that there seems to be a need for well drafted and explicit guidelines. It has to be a fundamental doing to carry out current legislation. People dealing with gas cylinders must understand that malpractice could be costly, and become an expansive lesson, if the fire brigade decides to establish an exclusion zone, whereas they otherwise could have saved at least parts of the building or property. Also, the insurance companies will narrow their economical liability to replace what is lost, if the insurance holder is found guilty of negligence or malpractice.Validerat; 20130620 (global_studentproject_submitter