Residential Camp Fire Incident

1
04/93

Committed to
Safety

• Residential Camp Fire Incident
• Background
• On the night of 12th July 1993, a fire broke out
  at the residential camp of one of our major
  service contractors. The camp was of portacabin
  style construction, with a central
  Mess/Kitchen/Bar/Recreational complex, consisting
  of an aggregation of cabins, approximately 24 in
  number. Sleeping accommodation was provided as
  separate individual cabins in a senior and junior
  camp. This central complex has been destroyed
  entirely by the fire, however the surrounding
  accommodation modules escaped serious damage due
  largely to their physical separation from the
  central complex. The fire started in the kitchen,
  where a saucepan of hydraulic oil with a flash
  point of 99 deg C was being heated on the kitchen
  stove in order to condition a small electrical
  equipment component. The oil ignited, and
  escalated rapidly to a major fire. Attempts were
  made to control the fire by the contractors
  staff, however due to the rapid escalation of the
  fire, the amount of smoke generated, and the
  failure of a fire pump, these efforts were
  unsuccessful. The camp was evacuated with no
  injury resulting from the accident, and the fire
  brought under control by the PDO emergency
  services. Propane storage bottles stored in the
  proximity of the kitchen hindered fire fighting
  operations, and they finally exploded, causing a
  large hole to be blown in the wall against which
  they were stored.
• Learning Points
• Heating of any oil other than routine cooking oil
  should not be undertaken in a kitchen
  environment
• The heating of industrial oils should only be
  performed in a fit for purposes facility, and the
  use of high flash point oils is preferred.
• Never leave a pan of oil on a heat source
  unsupervised, if it is necessary to leave the
  area (kitchen), then remove the pan from the
  source of heat.

2

Committed to
Safety

• Learning Points contd ...
• All persons involved in heating oil are to be
  familiar with the use of a fire blanket for the
  control of pan fires, and such a fire blanket
  should always be available.
• Once a fire takes hold inside a portacabin, or
  combined portacabin complex, the fire progression
  is rapid, and the likelihood is such that the
  unit(s) cannot be saved.
• Evacuation in an emergency can be 100 successful
  if the evacuation procedure includes an effective
  method of ensuring that the facility has been
  totally cleared, be it a personnel on board
  type technique, or by a fire warden technique.
• On line propane gas bottles are to be separated
  by a wall from combustible material if closer
  than 5 metres, to provide a heat radiation
  shield.
• Storage of empty / spare propane bottles is to be
  in a ventilated enclosure at least 20 meters from
  combustible materials.