Water provision, access and containment

How does Water provision, access and containment work, step by step?

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   Step 1: Consult the fire and rescue service during design

   Water, access and the site's emergency arrangements are discussed with the fire and rescue service while the design can still change. They advise on what they may need and how they would expect to approach the site. That consultation is recorded, and its outcomes are carried into the design as requirements rather than as notes. Presenting them with a finished design is how projects end up rebuilding access roads.

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   Step 2: Establish what water can be provided

   Existing provision near the site is established first, and the shortfall is then made up by the project. On many battery sites that means stored water, which is a designed structure with a supply, a level monitoring arrangement, a means for appliances to draw from it and a maintenance obligation. What is provided is set by the consultation, the fire engineer's assessment and the specification for that project.

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   Step 3: Design access for appliances, not for cars

   Access roads, hardstandings and turning provision are designed for the weight and dimensions of fire and rescue appliances and for the ground conditions the site will have in winter, not in June. Routes are arranged so that an incident in one part of the site does not cut off access to the rest, and so that appliances can approach from more than one direction where the layout allows it.

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   Step 4: Make gates, security and information work under stress

   Security arrangements have to let the fire and rescue service in quickly, including when the site has no power. Gate operation, key or access arrangements, and the site information provided to responders on arrival are all designed and agreed, and are kept current. A locked gate and an out-of-date site plan are a familiar and entirely avoidable combination.

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   Step 5: Design the containment system

   The site is designed so that water used at an incident is collected and held. That usually means falls and levels that direct run-off where it is wanted, kerbs or bunding to stop it going where it is not, a valve or penstock arrangement that can isolate the site drainage, and a holding capacity. The arrangement and the capacity come from the fire engineer and the environmental designer, and the isolation arrangement has to be operable quickly and by the people who will be there.

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   Step 6: Integrate containment with the site drainage

   Containment cannot be a separate system bolted on beside the drainage. Normal surface water drainage and the incident containment arrangement are designed together, so that the site drains as it should day to day and can be isolated and held when it must be. The interface between the two is where the design has to be explicit, and it is what gets missed when drainage and fire strategy are procured as separate packages.

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   Step 7: Plan the removal of what is held

   Holding contaminated water is only half the answer. The plan for testing it, removing it and disposing of it properly is prepared before the site operates, with the arrangements identified and the responsibility named. An operator discovering after an incident that they have a full containment tank and no plan is dealing with a second problem on top of the first.

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   Step 8: Test, maintain and rehearse

   Water provision, gates, access routes and containment isolation are tested before operation and at intervals through the life of the asset, and the operator's people are trained on them. The emergency plan is exercised rather than filed. These provisions are used, if ever, in the worst circumstances the site will see, and that is not the moment to find out that a valve has seized or a route is blocked.