U.S. Refinery Emergency Response Plan

A major U.S company operates a large refinery in Southern California, which provides 20 percent of all motor vehicle and 40 percent of jet fuels consumed in Southern California. The refinery has an on-site Industrial Fire Department, which includes a full-time staff and volunteers from within the refinery. The refinery had a complex operation consisting of many atmospheric and pressurized tanks, process units and buildings. It needed specific response plans for how to respond to fires at each. At the time, the refinery had over 300 plans that were unreliable and inconsistent.

We performed site visits, developed pre-plan templates, populated the refinery emergency response plans into a web-based planning system, provided printed copies and trained refinery staff on accessing and updating the pre-plans. They then upgraded to SMARTPLAN which improved functionality. Our technology has been in use at the refinery for over 11 years and has improved accuracy and accessibility of their fire pre-plans while reducing the cost of the program. The entire fire department now uses SMARTPLAN as a standard for training, exercises and response.