Industrial Fires and Explosions: Risk Assessment, Prevention, Detection, Mitigation and Impact

Dear Colleagues,

The contemporary world is based on countless technological processes that involve a myriad of flammable chemicals, whether as raw materials, as by-products or as products. These substances can be the source of extremely dangerous fires and even explosions (explosive atmospheres, suspended dust explosions) under sufficiently “wrong” conditions. Industrial-scale processes involve the storage, handling and processing of large volumes of chemicals, and therefore, the facilities and personnel involved in conducting such processes are under significant threat of fires or explosions resulting from the occurrence of accidents.

The replacement of technologies involving flammable chemicals is one avenue of risk mitigation; however, it is not always feasible for a variety of reasons. The ongoing trend of replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen is a key example of a case in which technologies involving the highly flammable and explosive hydrogen are justifiably far more desirable than technologies utilising less explosive compounds.

Consequently, the emergence of ever-newer technologies utilising flammable chemicals is an ongoing challenge for maintaining process safety, giving rise to the need to develop new safety measures, whether they are focused on prevention or on mitigation.

We are pleased to invite you to submit your contribution to this Special Issue, which is intended to give an overview of the state of the art in regard to preventing and monitoring the threat of industrial fires and explosions, as well as to mitigating the consequences of those events and investigating their impact.

This Special Issue aims to cover the abovementioned subjects and invites contributions in the form of original research articles or reviews, adhering to the journal’s guidelines. Contributions related to the following subjects are particularly encouraged, but need not be strictly within their scope:

• Studies of the causes of industrial fires and explosions;
• Case reports and analyses of industrial fire/explosion accidents;
• Methods of preventing fires and explosions, particularly related to emerging technologies;
• Methods and approaches to detecting the leakage/spillage of flammable substances, in the context of preventative monitoring;
• Fire/explosion risk assessment studies for emerging technologies, including energy storage systems (batteries, hydrogen storage);
• Studies of the impact of industrial fires/explosions on the infrastructure, personnel and the environment;
• Approaches to mitigating the consequences of fires/explosions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Tomasz Jarosz
Dr. Agnieszka Stolarczyk
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• fire safety
• explosion safety
• risk assessment
• prevention
• fire detection
• mitigation
• impact