Description of Incident
On March 30, 2022, an operator was injured when a fire occurred in the vicinity of a Caustic Wash Vessel.
Between March 29 and 30, teams were preparing for a turnaround and were using water to purge vessels of hydrocarbons. This process involves filling the vessel with water to displace lighter hydrocarbon process fluids to a closed system and subsequently draining the water from the vessel to an oily water sewer (OWS).
During the draining of the water stage, an unexpected remaining layer of light hydrocarbon was sitting on top of the water being sent to the drain. When the liquid hydrocarbon was drained to the OWS, it vaporized and resulted in a hydrocarbon cloud.
An operator moved toward the hydrocarbon cloud to close a drain valve from one of the vessels when the hydrocarbon ignited in a flash fire. The Operator was injured in the process.
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