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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire on a hydrogen bus during refuelling

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)