The fire caused by the impact of lightning on Friday night in one of the fuel storage tanks at the Matanzas Supertanker Base has not yet been controlled. By Saturday morning the fire had spread and caused four explosions in a second tank, while concerns were growing that a similar situation could occur with the third and fourth tanks.
However, at 12:35 a.m. on Sunday, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in the province, Susely Morfa González, reported that until that moment the third tank had not been affected and that the temperatures around the tanks, the wind and the intensity of the fire had decreased.
neighborhood journalism answers several essential questions to understand the actions that could be taken to extinguish the fire and prevent its spread.
How do fires start?
According to a document published by the National University of Mar del Plata in Argentina, there are four factors that must converge for a fire to start and be sustained: the presence of fuel, oxygen, heat and the occurrence of a chemical reaction. in chain If one of these conditions is removed or its intensity reduced, the fire can be extinguished.
Precisely, the different methods to put out fires focus on suppressing these factors. Among the most used are cooling, suffocation, elimination or dilution of combustible material and inhibition of chain reaction, explains the Colombian company SURATEP, specialized in professional risk management.
Cooling consists of lowering temperatures to levels below the point of ignition or flame formation until combustion is eliminated; suffocation seeks to avoid contact between oxygen and the combustible material, by reducing its concentration to values below the flammable limit of the mixture.
For its part, the elimination or dilution of the combustible material is based on isolating it or removing it totally or partially from the fire area; and the inhibition of the chain reaction lies in the application of an extinguishing agent that prevents this reaction from occurring.
What types of fire exist and why is it important to know?
The fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base is category B, that is, it occurs over combustible liquids or gases (Photo: David López Cruz).
Depending on the material or substance present in the environment where they occur, fires are classified into four categories, designated by the letters A, B, C and D.
The National University of Mar del Plata specifies that those of class A are those that are developed on solid fuels such as wood, paper, fabrics, rubber and plastics; those of class B –the category of the fire in Matanzas– are produced on combustible liquids or gases; those of class C on materials, installations or equipment subjected to the action of electric current; and those of class D on combustible metals such as magnesium, titanium, potassium and sodium.
The type of fire determines the extinguishing agent that will be used, since the effectiveness of a specific substance depends on the different ways in which it interacts with the fire and the factors that cause it.
Among the most used agents are water, foam, carbon dioxide (COtwo), chemical powders, halotron 1 and special powders, specifies the National University of Mar del Plata.
Water is commonly used for class A fires, on which it has a cooling effect; the foam acts by suffocation and also by cooling on class A and B fires; and the COtwo It has the property of reducing oxygen and is applied in class B and C fires.
In turn, the BC chemical powder is made up of bicarbonate and sulfates and acts as a suppressor of the chain reaction in class B and C fires; while ABC chemical powder is a mixture of products based on mono ammonium phosphate that, like BC, inhibits the chain reaction in class A, B and C fires.
Similarly, halotron 1 suppresses the chain reaction in the same types of fires as ABC, but in some places such as the European Union it is prohibited as an ozone depleting substance, regulated in the Montreal Protocol .
With regard to special powders, these are applied mostly in class D fires, and include sodium chloride, sodium carbonate, graphite, copper and nitrogen, emphasizes an article from the Royal Spanish Society of Chemistry .
In fact, nitrogen was used as an extinguishing agent in the fire of July 2, 2022 in the Gulf of Mexico, which was caused by the rupture of an underwater pipeline of the company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX).
What is the procedure to extinguish a fire like the one at the Matanzas Super Tanker Base?
The Operational Guide on Means and Tactics for Extinguishing Hydrocarbon Fires of the Provincial Firefighters Consortium of Valencia, Spain, establishes that in the event of a fire of this type it is necessary, at first, to obtain data on the type of fuel; the volume, capacity and type of deposit; the state of the adjoining warehouses and the fire protection systems implemented on the site.
Subsequently, the most appropriate strategies must be designed to control and extinguish the fire and ensure the existence of the necessary material and technical means: water reserves, total volume of foam or capacity to take other required materials to the ground.
In addition, the text indicates that the tanks that are located at a distance of less than 1.5 times the diameter of the walls of the burned tank must have refrigeration and, if the wind is in their favor, as in the case of Matanzas, the distance must be increased. to 2 times the diameter.
Likewise, the Guide suggests moving the product from the affected tank to a further one that already contains fuel and can be mixed.
What actions has Cuba implemented to stop the fire?
One of the first measures adopted was to stop the flow of fuel from the Supertanker Base to the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant for security reasons. Reception and cabotage in the city port were also suspended and operations were diverted to Havana and Cienfuegos, depending on the draft of the ships.
Additionally, the evacuation of the light fuels contained in the rest of the deposits began, reported a tweet of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) on Saturday night.
During the day, containment tasks were carried out that included the cooling of the surrounding tanks and the dumping of aggregate – a thermal insulator – in order to prevent the fire from spreading to the area where the generator sets are located.
However, without the discharge of effective extinguishing agents for this type of fire, it will be very difficult to put out. One of the most important decisions in this regard was the request for international aid from countries such as Mexico and Venezuela, with extensive experience in handling these situations.
On Saturday night, the first of three Mexican planes arrived on the island with members of the Armed Forces of that nation and specialists from PEMEX. The other two aircraft contain chemicals and supplies to put out the fire. few hours later landed a Venezuelan plane with 35 firefighters and technicians from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), as well as 20 tons of foam and chemical powders.