According to Wormald , fire protection solutions in Australia are based on the level of perceived risk in each case, such as the likelihood of a fire occurring and the expected consequence as a result.
Most Australian Standards that deal with fire protection offer an appropriate fire solution based on risk analysis and management in the form of prescriptive fire solutions presented within mandatory clauses for scope and technical requirements.
Australian Standard, AS 5062-2006: Fire Protection for Mobile and Transportable Equipment is the pre-eminent Standard for fire protection of heavy vehicles used in industries such as forestry. It promotes rigorous processes for risk analysis and assessment as a prerequisite to determine the design and installation of the best fire protection system for each individual heavy vehicle application. It is the first fire protection Standard to base fire protection on a risk analysis model, rather than a fixed prescriptive model.
Wormald have accepted the Australian Standard’s assessment and reporting process and their strict quality processes now include: Formalised Wormald Vehicle Fire Suppression (VFS) system risk assessment and reporting to ensure that all critical considerations have been assessed. The assessment and reporting incorporate a formal technical assessment for each vehicle application, which is ‘peer-reviewed’ by an accredited, experienced Wormald VFS system technician. The reports include:
- Fire hazard identification
- Fire risk analysis
- Fire risk treatment/reduction
- Recommendation for the appropriate fire solution
- A risk assessment accreditation process to ensure that only experienced and formally accredited Wormald VFS systems technicians perform the risk assessment and ‘peer-review’
- A strict training structure to provide the necessary technical knowledge, on the job experience and mentoring in Wormald’s VFS Systems.
Wormald’s technical electronic library is developed by the Technical Services Group and contains technical information to support the Wormald VFS systems including Australian Standards, system manuals, testing and listing approvals and procedures for their entire VFS systems staff to access.
According to Komatsu Forest Australia, it is vital that fire suppression systems are capable of addressing both operator safety and equipment protection.
Wormald’s systems include the Wormald Foam Water Spray system and the Ansul A101 Vehicle Powder system. The Foam Water Spray system features high pressure and small droplet nozzles targeting high risk areas, such as engine and transmission compartments, brakes and hydraulic areas and utilises the fire suppression and containment features of Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF).
Alternately, the A101 system discharges a dry powder known as Foray into the hazard volume to suppress a fire and is suitable for three dimensional liquid fuel fires.