1985 December - Naples - Fire and Explosion in a fuel storage area

This month CBS issued the final investigation report into the 2009 massive explosion at the Caribbean Petroleum. A very interesting video is available on the CSB’s website  as well as YouTube.

Today I do not want to talk about the Fire at Caribbean Petroleum Terminal Facility, but that accident reminds me of another event happened in Italy several years ago.

On December 21, 1985, at 5.13 a.m. a vapour cloud explosion occurred in a fuel storage area located in San Giovanni a Teduccio, near Naples, Italy.

Twenty-four of the 32 tanks at a large government owned marine petroleum products terminal were destroyed by a fire that began with a tank overfill.

A spill of gasoline occurred during a filling operation from the ship "Agip-Gela" berthed in the Naples harbour.

Gasoline overflowed through the roof of tank no. 17 for about 1.5 hours and the total amount of spilled fuel was estimated to be about 700 tons.

The resulting pool covered the bund area of the tank and the adjacent pumping area, which were connected through a drain duct. A large homogeneous vapour cloud formed due to the low wind speed, relatively high ambient temperature and a long delay prior to ignition.

According to some sources, the ignition source was in a pumping station and the resulting blast wave caused 5 casualties within the area.  The incident also caused 170 injuries and the evacuation of about 2,000 residents.

The strong explosion and the following fire, which lasted six days, destroyed all the buildings and the equipment within the area and 6 fixed roofs were found 50 m away from tanks.  A highway connection nearby was heavily damaged.

The main firefighting control center as well as electric and engine-driven fire pumps and foam lines were disabled. Efforts to extinguish the fire were handicapped by intense heat radiation and by debris from the explosion.

 About 800 firefighters with 166 pieces of mobile equipment were involved in emergency operation, consuming four-hundred and sixty tons of foam. This included airport crash trucks and even air tanker planes, which dropped foam on the fire.

The fire was extinguished on 27 December 1985, six days after it started.