Fire and explosion risk assessment in a process unit using Dow's Fire and Explosion Index

In the process industries, especially industries with hydrocarbons uses, due to flammability and reactivity of materials, high temperature, operation pressure, volatility and evaporability of liquid, fire and explosion hazard always has a great significances.The purpose of this study was to assess the quantitative fire safety using DOW’s fire and explosion index, in an oil extraction industry. The required information for conducting this research was obtained from process documents, DOW’s fire and explosion guideline,the measured operational parameters and also interviews and consultation with the supervisors and experts. Following, the study was conducted in three phases: 1) determination of DOW index, the radius and area of contact, 2) determination of loss control credit factor and finally 3) loss estimation. Fire and explosion index in the understudy process unit was calculated 243.68 and thus severity of risk was extremely high and unacceptable. Radius of exposure and loss control credit factor wasobtained62.38 meters and 0.69, respectively. Finally,the most probable loss was estimated about 2863500 dollars. DOW’s fire and explosion index is a suitable technique to measure the fire risk of whole plant or a part of it. Thus, this criterion can be used to propose the changes or amount of protective equipment according to their effect in reducing the losses.