Incident Report

Subject:                     Planes Put Out Fire on Caribbean Island !!!

Date of Email report:   Mon 13/09/2010

Report Detail:

      
A huge blaze that ignited when lightning hit a 200,000-barrel naphtha tank on the tiny Caribbean
island of Bonaire was put out on Friday after Venezuelan planes doused it with chemical foam.

Don't believe all you read in the news!!! I have never heard of a Tank Fire being extinguished by a plane - although misguided officials who have little expertise in practical tank fire-fighting, however, they still try to do so !!!  The tank likely burned itself out which was coincidental in them dropping foam chemicals into the tank in a pass over. 

NB:  You cant deal with a tank fire in the same manner as you can a bush fire !!!

Tall flares seen from across the island since the fire began on Wednesday were no longer visible in the morning, witnesses said, but smoke still billowed from the damaged tank at a terminal that stores 12 million barrels of oil products. "The fire is out," said Glenn Thode, Lieutenant Governor of the island that sits 50 miles off Venezuela's northern coast and is part of the Dutch Antilles. Speaking on Friday, he said the remaining smoke came from the smoldering remains of the tank, which partially melted in the blaze. Shipping is not expected to resume at least until the weekend from the Venezuelan-owned terminal that receives up to 25 tankers a month, as officials check for damage. "The terminal is closed and the ships are floating offshore -- it's too deep to drop anchor," said a trader who does business at the terminal. He said four vessels were waiting to dock. Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA uses the site to mix and ship crude and products to China and the United States. The island is a popular scuba diving destination famous for its pristine coral reefs and crystalline water. It was not immediately clear how many shipments will be delayed by the closure of the terminal. Thode said that several planes sent by PDVSA sprayed the burning tank with foam overnight, cooling adjacent tanks and lowering the flames. He called for three investigations into the fire and possible damage to the island's delicate ecosystem from gas and chemicals released by the blaze. One study will be carried out by the terminal management, or PDVSA; another by the government of the Netherland Antilles; and a third possibly by the Dutch government, he said. The fire was likely caused by an electrical storm, PDVSA said. A lightning strike was also blamed for a quickly controlled blaze at another PDVSA storage terminal on nearby Curacao, also part of the Dutch Antilles. Oil markets factored in the fires, with no discernible price changes as a result. PDVSA officials were not available to comment. The terminal, known as BOPEC, also stores heavy crude, gasoline, distillates and residual fuel oils. Naphtha is a petrochemical feedstock used in Venezuela for high octane gasoline blending and crude blending.