Fire on a hydrogen line of a naphtha reformer

A weld on hydrogen line of a reforming furnace failed and hydrogen escaped and ignited.

[Zalosh and Short, 1978]

DESCRIPTION OF THE NAPHTHA REFORMING PROCESS
The catalytic reforming process consists of several chemical reactions. They all require the presence of a catalyst, almost always platinum-containing, and a high partial pressure of hydrogen. The reaction conditions range from temperatures of about 495°C to 525°C and from pressures of about 5 to 45 bar.
The four major reactions are:
(1) The dehydrogenation of naphthenes to convert them into aromatics
(2) The isomerization of normal paraffins to isoparaffins
(3) The hydrogenation and aromatization of paraffins to aromatics (commonly called dehydrocyclization)
(4) The hydrocracking of paraffins into smaller molecules

The last reaction is the only one of the above four major reforming reactions that consumes hydrogen. Reation (2) does not consume or produce hydrogen, (1) and (3) produce hydrogen, so that the overall net production of hydrogen ranges from about 50 to 200 cubic meters of hydrogen gas (at standard conditions) per cubic meter of liquid naphtha feedstock. In many petroleum refineries, the net hydrogen produced in catalytic reforming supplies a significant part of the hydrogen used elsewhere in the refinery (for example, in hydrodesulfurization processes). The hydrogen is also necessary in order to hydrogenolyze any polymers that form on the catalyst.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenolysis ]