Warehouse fire in Brunswick, GA (Wood pellet storage)

[SprinklerDesigner2]

Warehouse fire

Posted: 10:06 p.m. Saturday, July 11, 2015
Warehouse fire burns buildings in Brunswick

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/warehouse-fire-burns-buildings-brunswick/nmxWN/[/url]

That's "pellets" and not "pallets".

Becoming a big deal down in South Georgia and northern Florida where there's half a dozen plants that manufacture ship and out of Savannah or Brunswick to Europe. Not sure if pellets for fuel have caught on in the United States but I did hear there was a stove just introduced that is supposed to be very efficient and clean burning.

I've been invited to bid two of these over the past five years but (maybe lucky for me) everything is handled out of Europe and I found it very hard to "make contact".

Anyway, what I really want to ask is where do I find in the standard what the design criteria for sprinklers would be? When you got a product that is designed to burn I got to figure it's going to be demanding to say the least.

Is there a standard I missed maybe?

Also, everything I have seen has very steep pitched roofs.

 

[MatthewJWillis]

There is no standard I am aware of. There may be now as it has been several years..

I have been asked on two occasions to develop criteria for these. Not one was happy with what I thought would work.
Best policy, control the amounts and locations of how it is pile/stored.
Always keep in mind, these things are made to burn... Very good!

R/
Matt

 

[cdafd]

So at some point is it just a great big pile??

Not in any containers??

 

[MatthewJWillis]

They normally are place in bags, different sizes.
So yes, the ones I dealt with would turn into essentially Solid Pile Storage.

R/
Matt

 

[cdafd]

Dry pipe or manual deluge

Might save the building at least

 

[MGXFP]

The steeped pitched roofs surely have an engineering reason for being but puts a damper on the fire suppression. My mind goes to something like idle wood pallet storage with the presence of large quantities of wood and ample air voids. However with the roof pitch that criteria technology is limited. Perhaps FM Global or another has investigated a criteria for use in these occupancies?

Is that a new building in flames? Wonder what criteria was used in this case?

 

[MatthewJWillis]

The steep pitched roofs are to allow more to be piled. Plain and simple. I am Very familiar with the snow loading in south GA. It really is not a concern.
Take a real close and good look at that fire plume and heat release in that picture. (thanks for providing that BTW)
Can you think of enough water to control that? The cost of the systems almost always shy away the owner/builder.
Cheaper to rebuild..
I am interested in how this will proceed..

OH! notice the conveyor, They have those inside as well. Pretty wide @ points.

R/
Matt

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

Little update but first a photo of the pile of ashes which is all that is left.

Fire destroys two huge warehouses at Port of Brunswick

Warehouses contained 20,000 to 30,000 tons of wood fuel pellets intended for markets in Europe

That's tons and not pounds. What's the fuel loading of 30,000 tons of pellets?

The big warehouses were built in 1982 and 1983 and were used to ship bulk commodities including fertilizer shipments at one time.

Knowing how things were done in the early 80's why do I have a gut feeling we're looking at OH Group II or III pipe schedule? Those were the days and regardless of what was stored if it was less than 12' it was automatically OH pipe schedule.

I remember if we couldn't make it work with hydraulic calculations, everything we did was did by hand, our backup plan was always pipe schedule.

 

[LCREP]

Sprinkler 2

Man are you old....lol

Problem is I remember it too.
I just retired after 36 years on the insurance side of the equation.

Make it .60/4000 include 750 GPM for hose. I am sure the water supply will cost a few $$$

Have fun, sometimes you just can not protect every occupancy.

Tom

 

[stookeyfpe]

The major issue is NFPA 13 Chapter 14 was probably never validated for this type of storage. When I look at the 2013 edition, it seems that true solid pile storage is treated like the ugly sister of bin box and palletized storage. The Appendix to Chapter 14 is essentially silent on this, probably for one good reason: the NFPA 13 TC extrapolated some data, which I doubt is all that valid.

I think all this density speculation speak is dangerous. The last photo shows me a ladder pipe flowing 1,000 GPM on a product that will be scooped by a large front end loader, dried out on a parking lot, and sent to Europe when it's dry. The owner loses some money, but probably gets paid for 70% of the loss, writes off the other 30% on his 2015 taxes, and gives a few grand in charity dollars to the local FD.

Travel to the Houston ship channel and this type of storage with plastics is not allowed because the final commodity has a value > $1 per pound. They bag it, barge it, or boat it because the manufacturing processes are more driven toward the market demand.

This wood pellet thing, it's regional, cheap and a few fires is the cost of doing business. It reminds me of cotton bale storage in South Texas in the 1970s and 1980s. And yeah, I am old.

 

[MGXFP]

Maybe the fire strategy is just to ensure all hands can evacuate the building and double down on insurance. I've encountered owners with that thought process before.

I know of a few commodities/storage arrangements that even ESFR can't control.

On the flip side, the costs to rebuild can't be too high. Fire suppression is usually only a small fraction of the total building costs and the new building likely won't have the steep roof etc.