Event
- Event ID
- 1072
- Quality
- Description
The fire developed an early morning on a hydrogen bus at a refuelling station for public transport. According to the bus company release, one bus was destroyed by fire suring refilling and the dispenser of the hydrogen fuelling station was damaged. The stationary hydrogen storage and the rest of the installation were not affected.
The fire Department was called to site responding to reports of a fire on the property. A section of the highway was closed as firefighters.
Explosions were heard and seen from the bus that had just been filled. Despite the fact that some news speak of the explosion, mentioning even the storage tanks, the evolution of the fire visible from the footage of a video do not confirm any explosion-like event. The fire develops rather incrementally at the back of the bus, where probably the fuel cells are situated, and endgulph gradually the rest of the bus.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Component involved
- FCEV bus
- Failure mode
- rupture & ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE was probably a leak on the onboard tanks during filling.
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/07/2024
Facility
- Application
- Road vehicles
- Sub-application
- FCEV-bus
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
on-board hydrogen storage, dispenser
- Process temperature range [C]
- ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- medium to high pressure (10 to 50 MPa)
- Location type
- Open
- Location
- populated area
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
The hydrogen refuelling station and the FC-buses fleet were recently been deployed.
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT
The bus was mounting hydrogen type 4 storage tanks (external fully wrapped carbon fibre reinforced shell with polymer internal liner).
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 1.100.000
- Post-event summary
The bus was valued at $1.1 million. Due to the stop of all FC-bus fleet (10 buses, representing 10% of the large-vehicle fleet), passengers may experience delays and temporary service disruptions.
- Emergency action
The video does not show any intevention to stop the fire. The event occurred at night, and probably there was no worker on site when the fire started.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Release pressure [MPa]
- 35
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- News
- Reference & weblink
HydrogenCentral news of 20 July 2023
https://hydrogen-central.com/fire-engulfs-new-hydrogen-bus-fueling-stat…
(accessed July 2023)