Fire protection as the underpinning of good process safety programs

This paper will provide an overview of the role of fire protection engineers in the mitigation phase of a process safety program. Fire protection engineers are involved in the assessment of hazards and the selection of fire protection strategies which can reduce the risk to an acceptable level according to the stipulated goals and objectives. Fire protection strategies may include the installation of a variety of approaches, such as passive and active fire protection systems, manual intervention and siting. Passive systems include fire rated barriers and protection of openings in those barriers, while active systems include systems such as fire detectors and sprinklers. Manual intervention may include the manual activation of fixed fire protection systems or firefighting activities by facility fire brigades or municipal fire departments. The manual firefighting activities are typically considered to be in the ‘response’ phase.