Skip to main content
Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire from the storage area of a HRS

Event

Event ID
1163
Quality
Description
A fire occurred at a hydrogen refuelling station for buses. The incident was initially reported as an explosion due to a loud noise and vibrations felt in nearby buildings. However, subsequent investigations clarified that the fire resulted from a hydrogen venting through a safety valve of the station hydrogen storage. The fire was extinguished within approximately 50 minutes, and no casualties were reported. Some damage occurred to the roof of the storage building.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
Fire (No additional details provided)
Macro-region
Asia
Date
Main component involved?
Prd (Valve)
How was it involved?
Premature Activation
Initiating cause
Unknown
Root causes
Unknown (No additional details provided)
Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE of the fire was a hydrogen venting through the safety valve.
The ROOT CAUSE is unknown.

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Refuelling Station
Sub-application
CHG2 storage
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Storage (No additional details provided)
All components affected
safety valve
Location type
Semiconfined
Operational condition
Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE FACILITY
HRS compression and storage capacity of 180 kg/h with two refueling lines providing 90 kg/h each. designed for commercial vehicles like trucks and buses (https://fuelcellsworks.com/2024/10/14/fuel-cells/korea-busan-new-port-completes-first-hydrogen-refueling-station-for-cargo-trucks).
From the pictures of the YTN video, the station storage system seems to consist in hydrogen tube trailers, wit the typical vent system for each of the tube releasing hydrogen inside the building. Another type of longer tubes is visible aswell.
The building appears to be only partially covered by a roof. storage pressure is unknown (possiblyaround 40 MPa), the hydrogen inventory, the safety systems in place.

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Environmental damage
0
Property loss (onsite)
low
Post-event summary
Some damage to the roof structure is visible.

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Presumed ignition source
Not reported

JRC assessment