Incendio forestal en Gironda, Francia
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En la madrugadadel 11 de diciembre de 2005 se produjo una gran explosión de un parque de tanques de combustible-aire cerca del tanque 912 del depósito de almacenamiento de petróleo de Buncefield, en el Reino Unido. El tanque se desbordó y desencadenó una cadena de explosiones posteriores, que acabaron afectando a 22 grandes tanques de almacenamiento. Sólo 7 tanques de combustible in situ no se vieron afectados.
Aproximadamente la mitad del complejo de Buncefield se dedica al almacenamiento de combustible de aviación para los aeropuertos de Gatwick, Heathrow y Luton. El resto del complejo almacena petróleo, queroseno, gasolina y gasóleo para gasolineras de gran parte del sureste de Inglaterra.
Emergency services declared a major incident at 06:08 and began firefighting efforts using large quantity of foam. However, the fixed water supply system was damaged, and on-site water sources were insufficient for the planned response.
Firefighting experts identified a reservoir with a capacity of 35 million litres, located 1.8 km from the incident site. This source was inaccessible for conventional suction pumps, but Hytrans mobile systems provided the needed solution. Other water sources couldn’t be used or didn’t hold enough water to guarantee a longer-term water supply.
At the water source, 6 Hytrans mobile HydroSub 150 units were installed. Each pump extracted 4200 liters per minute using a 6″ hoseline. This means in totaal 25.000 liters of water per minute (6600 GPM) was pumped from the reservoir.
In situ, tres unidades HydroSub 150 adicionales sirvieron como bombas de refuerzo para aumentar la presión y alimentar los monitores. Cuatro HydroSub se utilizaron específicamente para bombear las enormes cantidades de aguas residuales.
Without the mobile units from Hytrans, this complete setup would, at that time and in that situation, have required 180 standard firefighting applications and at least double the personnel.
Thirty-two thousand liters of foam per minute were directed against the fire for just over four hours, after which the pumping rate was reduced. Half of the 20 individual fires were reported extinguished by midday.
Using HoseBoxes with 3,000 metres of hose each, 12 lines of 6” hose were deployed. In total, 33,000 metres of hose (which is over 3 times the height of the Mount Everest) were deployed within one hour. Recovery of all hose took approximately eight hours. The system performed a task that would normally require 160 firefighting vehicles.
