Fire from a LH2 tanker

The truck was delivering hydrogen to a steel products plant. It contained approximately 8500 gallon of liquid hydrogen. The operation of transfer to the customer tank had just terminated. The fire started at the tanker vent stack during post-delivery venting.
The emergency services were called - fire engines from two stations attended. The facility and the neighbourhood, including local schools and businesses were evacuated as a precautionary measure.
The fire was limited to the tanker vent stack.
The hazardous material incident team personnel closed the vent valve the 2.5 hours later.


The emergency services closed the traffic and evacuated several businesses, schools and homes for a few hours.

According to preliminary findings, the INITATING CAUSE was the failure of a valve. The ignition of the hydrogen may have been caused, of facilitated by a lack of proper grounding, through static build-up.
The investigation to determine the ROOT CAUSE was not yet terminated at the moment the source issued this event.

vent valve

There was no release of hazardous materials due consumption by fire.
There were no reported injuries or damage to property.
The rear of the tanker did incurred some minor fire damage.

A picture provided by local news shows that the emergency teams fought the fire by means of a water jet directed to the tank vent.
It is in general not advised to use water to stop a fire on a cryogenic tank. The action can cause freezing of the water and the blocking of the pressure relief venting, with consequent building up of the pressure inside the tank and possible catastrophic failure of the entire tank. In this case, however, the LH2 had already been transferred and it could be assumed that the little hydrogen left in the taker was already evaporated or in the process to do so, with negligible potential for a major pressure increase.