| Summary: | In March 2012, a fire began in an industrial property in Kiruna. At the arrival of the fire brigade, the fire was relatively confined. Unsuccessful attempts to find and retrieve all compressed gas cylinders, called for an establishment of an initial cordon (exclusion zone) and evacuation zone, due to risk of explosion. The fire could not be confined within the initial enclosure or fought down, despite the brigades attempts to cool the fire. The rescue operation ended nearly 39 hours after the fire departments arrival. The property and all the vehicles inside, were perished in the fire. The purpose of this report is to investigate if these course of event is an issue in a national perspective. The question is if similar situations are occurring frequently and if it had been possible to salvage anything in those fires, if there had not been any gas cylinders to consider. Since adequate location of the cylinders is essential to enable a removal in case of fire, a review if it is possibility for the Swedish fire departments to state requirements of the handling and arrangement of gas cylinders, and if so, to what extent. Whether there may be any difficulties for the persons in question to understand their obligations and responsibility in relation to handling of gas cylinders, is also reviewed. Laws, frameworks and enactments along with guidelines and manuals from authorities and gas suppliers do not present an overly straight forward result. The fire department can stipulate handling of gas cylinders, containing flammable gases, by the delegation by the law concerning flammable substances and explosives, but if the gas cylinder is not containing a flammable gas, the task to ensure safety is not very easy. The law for ensuring the work environment, Arbetsmiljölagen, and the corresponding enactments, include enactments regarding all gas cylinders (even those not containing flammables gases), however that is not within the fire departments area of justice. It is very likely to find gas cylinders in fires involving ...
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