Journal of Health and Safety at Work

Introduction: Emergency situation is one of the influencing factors on human error. The aim of this research was purpose to evaluate human error in emergency situation of fire and explosion at the oil company warehouse in Hamadan city applying human error probability index (HEPI).

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Material and Method: First, the scenario of emergency situation of those situation of fire and explosion at the oil company warehouse was designed and then maneuver against, was performed. The scaled questionnaire of muster for the maneuver was completed in the next stage. Collected data were analyzed to calculate the probability success for the 18 actions required in an emergency situation from starting point of the muster until the latest action to temporary sheltersafe.

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Result: The result showed that the highest probability of error occurrence was related to make safe workplace (evaluation phase) with 32.4 % and lowest probability of occurrence error in detection alarm (awareness phase) with 1.8 %, probability. The highest severity of error was in the evaluation phase and the lowest severity of error was in the awareness and recovery phase. Maximum risk level was related to the evaluating exit routes and selecting one route and choosy another exit route and minimum risk level was related to the four evaluation phases.

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Conclusion: To reduce the risk of reaction in the exit phases of an emergency situation, the following actions are recommended, based on the finding in this study: A periodic evaluation of the exit phase and modifying them if necessary, conducting more maneuvers and analyzing this results along with a sufficient feedback to the employees.

Introduction: In the process industries, especially industries with hydrocarbons uses, due to flammability and reactivity of materials, high temperature, operation pressure, volatility and evaporability of liquid, fire and explosion hazard always has a great significances.The purpose of this study was to assess the quantitative fire safety using DOW’s fire and explosion index, in an oil extraction industry.

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Material and Method: The required information for conducting this research was obtained from process documents, DOW’s fire and explosion guideline,the measured operational parameters and also interviews and consultation with the supervisors and experts. Following, the study was conducted in three phases: 1) determination of DOW index, the radius and area of contact, 2) determination of loss control credit factor and finally 3) loss estimation.

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Result: Fire and explosion index in the understudy process unit was calculated 243.68 and thus severity of risk was extremely high and unacceptable. Radius of exposure and loss control credit factor wasobtained62.38 meters and 0.69, respectively. Finally,the most probable loss was estimated about 2863500 dollars.

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Conclusion: DOW’s fire and explosion index is a suitable technique to measure the fire risk of whole plant or a part of it. Thus, this criterion can be used to propose the changes or amount of protective equipment according to their effect in reducing the losses.