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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire on a hydrogen bus during refuelling

Event

Event ID
1072
Quality
Description
The fire developed an early morning on a hydrogen bus at a refuelling station for public transport. According to the bus company release, one bus was destroyed by fire suring refilling and the dispenser of the hydrogen fuelling station was damaged. The stationary hydrogen storage and the rest of the installation were not affected.
The fire Department was called to site responding to reports of a fire on the property. A section of the highway was closed as firefighters.
Explosions were heard and seen from the bus that had just been filled. Despite the fact that some news speak of the explosion, mentioning even the storage tanks, the evolution of the fire visible from the footage of a video do not confirm any explosion-like event. The fire develops rather incrementally at the back of the bus, where probably the fuel cells are situated, and endgulph gradually the rest of the bus.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
Fire (No additional details provided)
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Main component involved?
Fcev (Bus)
How was it involved?
Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
Initiating cause
Unknown
Root causes
Unknown (No additional details provided)
Root CAUSE analysis
The INITATING CAUSE was probably a leak on the onboard tanks during filling.

Facility

Application
Road Vehicles
Sub-application
Hydrogen bus
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transfer (No additional details provided)
All components affected
on-board hydrogen storage, dispenser
Location type
Open
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences
The hydrogen refuelling station and the FC-buses fleet were recently been deployed.

Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT
The bus was mounting hydrogen type 4 storage tanks (external fully wrapped carbon fibre reinforced shell with polymer internal liner).

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
1100000
Post-event summary
The bus was valued at $1.1 million. Due to the stop of all FC-bus fleet (10 buses, representing 10% of the large-vehicle fleet), passengers may experience delays and temporary service disruptions.

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Actual pressure (MPa)
35
Design pressure (MPa)
35
Presumed ignition source
Not reported

References

Reference & weblink

HydrogenCentral news of 20 July 2023<br />
https://hydrogen-central.com/fire-engulfs-new-hydrogen-bus-fueling-stat… <br />
(accessed July 2023)

JRC assessment