Posted By TBC The petro-chemical industry will again learn valuable lessons from this incident. How they deal with them in the future is another story. One thing, which is always present in any incident is human error. Whether it is in the design of the 'safety systems', the maintenance or procedures put in place, something can and will go wrong eventually. Why is it taking so long to attack the blaze? Why didn't the contingency plans allow for the gathering of the foam products at a faster rate? Are they waiting for the blaze to die down a bit first? Let's hope that no lives (human or wildlife) are put at risk in the coming hours or days as the work goes on to contain the blaze.

Posted By John Webster Unfortunately, these incidents demonstrate the first law of risk management - Murphys Law - that if a thing can go wrong, it will. Where there is risk, we try to manage that risk "afarp" and in the case of high risk activities that may well translate into "as far as is humanly possible". Nevertheless, unless we completely remove the hazard we can never eliminate the risk. What does concern me is that in a perverse sort of way our ability to vitually eliminate the small accidents in process plant has lead to a situation where only the unthinkable can now happen. And when it does, its going to be a biggie. It would not be appropriate at this stage to even speculate as to the cause of this blast and fire, neither is it fair to criticise the acivities of the fire service without a deeper knowledge and understanding of the decisions which have had to be taken. As I type, the plan to move specialist equipment and foam stocks from around the country appears to have come together, and the systematic extinguishing of the fires appears to be progressing well. To mount this within 24 hours seems to me to be a fantastic response - the TV "experts" were confidently predicting that there was no way to fight such a fire, and that it would just have to be contained and allowed to burn itself out!

Posted By Fred Pratley Buncefield will be a source of debate for a long time and we will all learn something from it. The cause will doubtless be known fairly soon - after all, it was very quickly being called an accident - and doubtless there will be an indepth review of the controls on such installations. I live about 45 minutes drive away from Buncefield - about 17 miles as the crow flies, and having been woken by a (highly unusual) assumed clap of thunder that shook our house at 06:05 on Sunday Morning, and having come to the slow realisation later that afternoon that the dark cloud on the edge of the weather front was moving slowly away from us was in fact the smoke plume from the fuel fire, I can only echo the comments made by the Fire Brigade CO on their response to the fire on the evening news - "This is unchartered territory" Fred

Posted By TBC In an ideal world the foam will blanket the burning fuel and snuff it out. If this is done quickly (with little breakdown of the foam)and satisfactorily then no or little excess should get into the water courses. (This is one of reasons that so much foam has to be accumulated before a successful attack can take place.) It will hopefully be contained in the bund wall if the drain valves are closed properly. I have known these drain valves to pass and not be maintained for years on end. I'm not referring to this site by the way. I also think the tanks are too close together to allow them to be protected from others on fire. As for those ghouls getting close to take pictures - They should be arrested for some offence of obstruction etc. They could place others in danger if things go wrong and somebody has to rescue them. I have friends in the Fire Service who had to weave in and out around spectators and their cars to get to the Flixborough job. The debate will continue.