A fire broke out at a large gas holder at the Malanshan gas facility in Panzhihua, Sichuan Province, at approximately 11:02 a.m. on June 13, 2022.
According to the original incident report, the Panzhihua Fire and Rescue Detachment responded to the emergency and dispatched seven fire and rescue stations, 21 fire engines, and more than 100 emergency personnel to the scene.
The fire occurred at a large wet-type spiral-lift gas holder with a design capacity of 54,000 cubic meters and an actual stored volume of approximately 25,000 cubic meters at the time described in the report.
The gas involved contained components including carbon monoxide, hydrogen, alkanes, alkenes, and aromatic hydrocarbons.
These characteristics, together with the large volume of stored gas, created significant challenges for emergency response operations.
Another major challenge was the location of the fire.
According to the incident information, the fire was located near the upper edge of the gas holder, while the structure itself had a total height of approximately 47 meters.
The combination of the elevated fire location, the large volume of stored gas, and the properties of the combustible gas created significant challenges both for firefighting operations and for the safety of emergency response personnel.
Incidents involving gas storage and other petrochemical facilities highlight the importance of fire prevention, early detection, and reliable safety monitoring in industrial environments.
Facilities handling combustible or hazardous materials may require monitoring technologies selected according to the specific hazards, equipment layout, operating environment, applicable standards, and fire protection requirements.
Fiber optic sensing is one of the technologies used for temperature and fire monitoring in certain industrial and infrastructure environments. Distributed fiber optic sensing technologies can support temperature, acoustic/vibration, or strain monitoring depending on the sensing method and application requirements.
Early identification of abnormal conditions can provide additional information for operators and safety personnel, but monitoring technology should form part of a broader fire prevention, protection, and emergency-response strategy.
