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Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

(OP)
How do i go about determining the capacity of a water tank dedicated for firefighting in a 65 MW HFO thermal power plant using NFPA stds? Kindly detail the steps and relevant stds for me. Is there a rule of thumb i can use here?

Chris-Uganda

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

Look in the IFC for site waterflow demands and durations.

Travis Mack
MFP Design, LLC
www.mfpdesign.com
 

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

If you are talking about a system with private hydrants in accrdance with NFPA 24 and deluge systems on oil filled transformers, then no NFPA standard is going to tell you what size the water tank should be.

If your brief is just to use NFPA, you would need to have discussions with the stakeholders (owner, AHJ, insurer, fire protection consultant if there is one) to work out what tank size you should use.  

As a starting point you could use the IFC as a guide.     

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

Easy, look for NFPA 850 (recommended practice).

Basically it says:

- 500gpm for 2 hrs plus the design scenario systems demand (i.e fixed or mobile systems like sprinklers, deluge systems, foam equipment, monitors, etc. involved in a reasonable design fire scenario with simultaneous water demand with their respective design duration).

- The 850 does not tell if the mobile equipment should be included or not in the 500gpms  

- This will give a design water flow and a water reserve volume. The water reserve design volume should be replenished on 8 hrs or less.

If possible consider more water for long fire combat operations, cooling or after fire washing up.     

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

(OP)
Thank you TravisMack, Blueshift and DavidCR! Will work with IFC and NFPA 850 as suggested. I will let you know how it goes.

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

The water tank capacity will be based on the sprinkler flow duration and no. of hose stream requirement assuming no inflow of water from the make up source.  Flow duration and hose stream requirement can be obtained from your fire insurance carrier.  Then from past results that I have noted, it will not be enough water as the storage tanks get filled with sediment with time. So tack on a minimum extra capacity of 50%.  

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

hello

RE: Determining the Capacity of Water Tank for Fire Fighting!

Since you are using NFPA try NFPA 1 (18.4 and T18.4.5.1.2)

"Fire suppression is a failure in prevention"

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