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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire on a LH2 tanker-truck

Event

Event ID
1099
Quality
Description
A trailer-tractor carrying a liquid hydrogen tanker took fire on a highway. The fire was due to a malfunction of the diesel engine fuel injection system. The fire engulfed the whole cabin of the tractor.
The local fire brigades were able to suppress the fire in 15 minutes, before a possible escalation with damage to the liquid hydrogen tank. From a video of the event, it appears that the LH2 tank was not touched by the flames coming from the cabin and the front tires. Possibly, the heat affected only the front surface of the tank.
One of the source mentioned that the fire fighters strategy implied also the cooling of the liquid hydrogen tanker. This is however not confirmed by a video taken by a drone of a neighbour.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
No Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Main component involved?
Lh2 Tanker
How was it involved?
No Release
Initiating cause
Conventional Component Failure (Fire-Engine)
Root causes
Unknown (No additional details provided)
Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE was a malfunction of the engine fuel injection system, which started to spray diesel around.
Despite the fire destroyed the truck cabinet, it did not affect the cryogenic tank.
The ROOT CAUSE is unknown, nevertheless hydrogen-system-independent.

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
Sub-application
LH2 tanker
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
All components affected
diesel engine
Location type
Open
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences
It is unknown if the tanker was containing liquid hydrogen or was almost empty, with only gaseous hydrogen.

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Environmental damage
0
Property loss (offsite)
0
Post-event summary
The driver cabin was destroyed. No damage to the liquid hydrogen tank

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt

This incident represents a well-known accidental scenario related to conventional road incidents, in which the hydrogen tank is subjected to a localised fire.
In this case, however, the flames do not seem to have engulfed the liquid hydrogen tank. Despite a possible unspecified heat flow impinging onto its front end, it seems that the internal shell of the cryogenic tank did not experience any significant change in temperature which could cause an increase of pressure and the activation of the pressure control and relief system. Tis may have also to do with the fact that the fire lasted only 15 minutes.
Unfortunately it is unknown if the tank was full or empty.

Event Nature

Release type
no release
Released amount
0
Presumed ignition source
No release

References

Reference & weblink

Summary of various online news

JRC assessment