This document is one of a series providing guidance on the assessment of COMAH safety reports. It is not intended to be prescriptive and Assessors are expected to use it intelligently and be flexible in the way they interpret its advice. Certain aspects of warehouse fire hazard modelling are still under review within HSE and Assessors should bear in mind that the guidance in this document is likely to be superseded at some time in the not too distant future.
Section 2 lists the main topics of a warehouse safety report and outlines the level of detail Assessors should expect. However, sites vary considerably and while every effort has been made to make the guidance generally applicable, occasions will arise when it is either inapplicable or lacking in detail. A safety report should contain maps, tables, plans, data sheets and environmental survey data, examples of which have been deliberately excluded from this document. Assessors are expected to use their own judgement to determine the acceptability of this type of information.
The background information on warehouse fires in Section 3 is designed to give an brief overview of the main topics of interest. An exhaustive review of the literature and a detailed description of the numerous problems faced by workers attempting to model the various phenomena is not attempted and if Assessors require more information they should consult the MSDU topic specialist.
Section 4 describes in detail the sort of consequence analysis that Assessors should expect to see in a COMAH safety report. There are numerous methods involving many assumptions that can be applied to warehouse fire hazards and some of the more popular that produce conservative results are discussed. All of the more obscure approaches which Assessors may, from time to time, be required to comment on could not addressed in this document and in these cases Assessors are advised to focus on the level of conservatism and to use FIREPEST 3 as a bench marker.