First operational deployment of the Fire Service Network Seaport-Scheldt

At the end of June, a large naphtha tank of TotalEnergies in Municipality of Zwijndrecht suffered a leak. The flammable product was collected in the containment and quickly foamed there by TotalEnergies' company fire department. Both the fire and explosion hazard and the odor nuisance could thus be adequately combated. Already during the first hours of the intervention it became clear that it would be a complex and lengthy deployment in which the foam carpet in the containment would have to be maintained for several days. Afterwards, it turned out that the foam carpet had to be maintained for more than a week. The members within the Seaport-Scheldt Fire Network were questioned several times by the Network Coordinator: - Relatively early a request for assistance with additional fluorine-free firefighting foam was sent out. Covestro's company fire department responded positively and arrived on site with an industrial foam car pump (SAP), providing additional margin for TotalEnergies to transport foam from other sites to Zwijndrecht. - BASF's intervention service provided technical advice as well as pumps and flexible hoses. - A tug with extinguishing capacity from Port of Antwerp-Bruges was requested on site to feed the large water transport (GWT) of the Civil Protection with sufficient flow from the Scheldt. - After several days, the network was requested for a backup foam car pump to quickly deal with any technical failure of deployed resources. ExxonMobil provided this backup foam car pump on behalf of TotalEnergies. - A delivery of firefighting foam meant for Advario Belgium was made available for use at the incident location. - Throughout the intervention, INEOS Oxide assisted in the water supply for the intervention through their water network. In addition to the private partners in the fire network, the public partners, Fire Brigade Zone Antwerp and Assistance Zone Waasland , also supported the incident on site. They also involved the Civil Protection of SPF Intérieur - FOD Binnenlandse Zaken and several other assistance zones, including Fire Brigade Zone Rivierenland and Fire Brigade Zone Rand. Brandweer Zone Antwerpen and Hulpverleningszone Waasland also activated their cooperation agreement with the Gezamenlijke Brandweer Rotterdam and the Veiligheidsregio Rotterdam-Rijnmond, which allowed, on the one hand, a tank incident specialist to come to the scene and, on the other hand, through the Dutch PII network (Platform Industriële Incidentbestrijding), a container of foaming agent to be made available by the Dow Terneuzen company fire department. The first operational deployment of BZS network was immediately one of a very large scale, where mutual assistance proved to be an absolutely crucial link. With this first experience richer, the members of the network are now continuing their operational preparation for optimal incident response.