Fuel terminals, tank farms and pipeline terminals store large volumes of product, often close to rail lines, highways and neighborhoods. A tank fire can burn for hours, and the smoke goes wherever the wind takes it.
A real example: the 2018 Magellan terminal fire
Early on February 18, 2018, a fire broke out on piping next to a 43,000-barrel tank holding about 30,000 barrels of ultra-low sulfur diesel at the Magellan Midstream Partners terminal in West Fargo, North Dakota. It burned for about seven hours. Black smoke blew south over the city, a shelter-in-place advisory covered a five-mile radius, and crews used about 400,000 gallons of water and 500 gallons of foam. (InForum; City of West Fargo) The company later attributed the fire to a mechanical failure of a tank pump. (InForum)
LR-x® was used during that fire. A plume model was running within five minutes, and changing atmospheric conditions shifted the plume’s direction during the event, which is exactly what responders need to see while planning possible evacuations. Read the Magellan fire story.
The hazards
- Tank and pipe fires that put a smoke plume over the community for hours.
- Vapor releases from tanks, puddles and pipelines. ALOHA, the NOAA/EPA plume model LR-x® runs, includes source models for tank, puddle and gas pipeline releases. (NOAA)
- Smoke ALOHA does not model. NOAA notes that ALOHA does not model smoke or combustion byproducts. (NOAA) For a fire, the 3D wind field and the forecasts are how you see where the smoke will go next.
Why terrain-aware wind helps here
Many terminals sit along rivers, in valleys or next to rail embankments, and wind near the ground follows that shape. The LR-x® 3D wind field model maps how wind moves over the terrain around the site instead of assuming one wind for the whole area. How the 3D wind field model works.
What LR-x® adds to the emergency plan
- Any chemical ALOHA can model. ALOHA’s chemical library covers over 500 pure chemicals and some common chemical solutions, a subset of NOAA’s CAMEO Chemicals database. (NOAA ALOHA Technical Documentation)
- Three additional forecasts, about every 2 minutes, to anticipate a wind shift that could turn the smoke toward a school or neighborhood.
- ALOHA threat zones for toxic vapor releases, updated automatically as the weather changes.
- Tier II data on what nearby facilities report storing, with contacts.
- KML export. LR-x® exports the real-time plume model, the real-time 3D wind field model and the three forecast models as KML files you can use in ArcGIS, with your site layout and evacuation zones.
- Model history to review an incident afterwards, and what-if scenarios for drills.
Who uses it
Terminal operators and their emergency response staff, the local fire department and hazmat team, mutual aid partners, county emergency management and the LEPC.
See also: refineries, rail yards and transload and all facility types.
Magellan Midstream Partners is named here because of a publicly reported incident LR-x® was used on. This page does not claim any company is an LR-x® customer.