Responding to Ethanol Incidents

This course addresses the needs of emergency responders when faced with incidents involving ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels.

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Ethanol, what is the worry?

On May 14, 2007, a tanker carrying 8,000 gallons of ethanol overturned and burst into flames on an interstate in Baltimore, Maryland, killing the driver and sending a burning stream of ethanol into the street below, igniting a row of parked vehicles.
On October 22, 2006, an eighty-six-car train carrying ethanol derailed, sending some of the tank cars into a river while others burst into flames.
On June 19, 2006, five tank cars derailed and leaked approximately 12,000 gallons of ethanol before emergency crews were able to stop the leaks.

Ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels are in use in growing quantities in the United States, and volumes have become substantial. Consumers in the United States use more than 140 billion gallons of gasoline per year. Today, there are more than 8 billion gallons of fuel ethanol produced in the United States.

The addition of ethanol to gasoline presents some unique firefighting challenges. Traditional methods of fire fighting against hydrocarbon (gasoline) fires have been found to be ineffective against these polar solvent-type (ethanol-blended) fuels.

While gasoline will tend to float on top of water, ethanol fuels are water soluble and will tend to blend with the water. For this reason, the use of Alcohol-Resistant (AR) foam as a means of extinguishing an ethanol fire is recommended.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States and the world has become a motorized society. Most families either own an automobile or rely on motorized transportation on a daily basis. For the past 100 years, the primary automotive fuel has been a byproduct of crude oil, a limited natural resource. Opposite from the European community, who focused on diesel engines for light-duty and passenger vehicles, the United States automobile industry has predominantly produced gasoline-powered vehicles. The heavy-duty or off-road larger vehicles and equipment are generally being powered by diesel power plants. Both gasoline and diesel are hydrocarbons (composed of hydrogen and carbon) derived from crude oil.

The nature and characteristics of hydrocarbon fuels are familiar to virtually everyone involved in fire protection today since gasoline and diesel are so widely used and incidents are common occurrences. However, as a result of public policy toward foreign oil supplies and other mandates, ethanol-blended fuels are becoming a substantial component of the U.S. motor fuel market. Today, ethanol is blended into nearly 50 percent of the nation’s fuel and is sold virtually from coast-to-coast and border-to-border.

As of the beginning of 2007, the domestic U.S. ethanol industry consisted of over 100 bio-refineries, located in 21 different states, with the capacity to produce more than 6 billion gallons of this motor fuel. Fuel ethanol inherently burns with less visible smoke than gasoline. The bio-fuels industry, in general, is expected to significantly contribute to the nation’s motor fuel supply.

The ethanol industry has been growing rapidly. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), in 2006 the growth of the transportation fuels marketplace was equivalent to the capacity expansion realized in the ethanol industry. In early 2008, there are reportedly seventy-eight bio-refineries under construction. With seven existing bio-refineries expanding, the industry projected more than 6 billion gallons of new production capacity to be in operation by the end of 2009, more than doubling production capacity in under three years. Some predict that similar growth will continue into future years.

Consumers in the United States use more than 140 billion gallons of gasoline per year, and already most of that is blended with ethanol. This course will address the needs of emergency responders when faced with incidents involving ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels.