Offshore Platform Fire Fighting-What Can We Learn?

Having been involved with firefighting, and rescue work for years, I can't help but think that in the chain of events that when wrong on the Deep Horizon accident that led to the ultimate disaster it is today, that there where other decision that where made after the fire started and the emergency response started that may have contributed to the severity of the spill that we see today. Once the fire boats arrived and started to train their monitor guns on the rig, I just wonder if there was much though that went into the end results of putting large amounts of water on a free floating vessel.

From talking with an individual that worked on the bridge of a sister ship to this vessel this was a free standing rig and technically was a type of boat and not a standing platform. Large amounts of water where being directed at the vessel with out the thought of how is all that weight afffecting the unit when none is being pumped off, or out of the unit. Ultimately the bouyence of the vessel was compromised which led to the sinking, and the direct result is the mess that occurred today.

The problem with what occurred needs to be analysised so that in the future an approach to fighting large fires on offshore drilling platforms/ships can be addressed. Was there tunnel vision going on in the pursuit of putting out the fire so that survivors could be looked for, that no thought of what happens to the vessel when no pumping is being done on the vessel so unit will not be swamped? What is the level of incident command training of each coastguard fireboat working, and how the incident was approached. These are questions that should be asked, I don't see anything in the news media, about how this fire was fought and did the way the fire was fought contribute to the spill happening in the first place. Would the vessel still be afloat if a different approach was done, We will never know until this question if addressed. Just My Thoughs what is yours?

Tags: Fire, Offshore, fighting, lessons

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Permalink Reply by Russell Crow on June 24, 2010 at 9:20am

Patrick, this is a very good observation.

Fighting fires aboard ships has been the strong suit of the US Navy since WW2. In basic training, Naval Recruits are drilled on firefighting and required to study the classic historical cases from the Yorktown, Forrestal, and many others. Every person onboard has basic training in firefighting, and there are also specialist teams which drill regularly.

I contend that the US Navy could have dealt with the fire, and possibly saved the Deepwater Horizons. Instead, from apparent evidence, the situtation proceded just as you described. The fireboats swamped the ship without any hope of extinguishing the oil fed fire. In the sinking process, the DH dragged the marine riser to bottom and left it broken and leaking oil. We are just plain lucky the DH didn't not land upon the BOP stack. The Macondo well would be gushing several times as much oil, if the damaged stack weren't restricting the flow.

As for future precautions? That's the sad part. That marine riser had an expansion sleeve. If the rescue crew had towed the DH, the riser might have disconnected and remained floating near the surface. If it wouldn't disconnect, a US Navy vessel could have easily separated it with as much force as necessary--including weaponry. Putting out the fire from the floating riser would have been a simple matter, as would containment of the gushing oil from a source so close to the surface.

This whole mess has been a string of errors. Yesterday, a robot hit a line connected to the LMRP Cap, which started leaking. They removed the Cap for 12 hours, and now it will take 3 days to get the Cap back up to the level of capture it was getting before. In the meantime, an extra 5 million gallons of crude flows out into the Gulf...

I give up,
Russell

AREA	LAST COUNT DATE	COUNT	CHANGE FROM PRIOR COUNT	DATE OF PRIOR COUNT	CHANGE FROM LAST YEAR	DATE OF LAST YEARS COUNT
UNITED STATES	5/17/13	1769	+0	5/10/13	-217	5/18/12
CANADA	5/17/13	118	+5	5/10/13	0	5/18/12
USA OFFSHORE	5/17/13	52	+2	5/10/13	+5	5/18/12
INTERNATIONAL	04/2013	1301	+33	3/2013	+123	4/2012

Recent Rotary Rig Count May 17th, 2013

Offshore Platform Fire Fighting-What Can We Learn?

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