Allocation and Scheduling of Firefighting Units in Large Petrochemical Complexes

Abstract

Fire incidents in large petrochemical complexes such as oil refineries cause heavy losses. Due to the strong interdependencies that exist among units in these industrial complexes, planning an efficient response is a challenging task for firefighters. The task is even more challenging during multiple-fire incidents. This chapter describes a firefighting decision support system that helps conduct efficient responses to fire incidents. The decision support system optimizes the allocation of firefighting units in multiple-fire incidents with the objective of minimizing the economic impact. In particular, the system considers infrastructure interdependencies in estimating the damage associated with a given fire scenario, calculates the resulting economic losses and determines the optimal assignment of available firefighters. The decision support system can be used before an incident for training and planning, during an incident for decision support or after an incident for evaluating suppression strategies.