Risk of Fuel Spills and the Transient Models of Spill Area Forecasting

Most accidents in chemical process industry, as well as a large number of fires in general, are triggered by accidental spilling of flammable liquids. Such spills either get auto-ignited or are set on fire by one or the other ignition source. If other flammable material happens to catch fire before the initial fire is extinguished, the accident gets escalated. In many situations, the escalation is catastrophic, resulting in very large fires, with or without explosions. This paper assesses the transient models developed so far to predict the areas covered by accidental fuel spills.