Ranking Factors Impacting Survival During Coal Mine Fires

Details

• Personal Author:
  Kissell, Fred N. ; Litton, Charles D. ; Timko, Robert J.
• Description:
  This study ranks the factors impacting survival during a coal mine fire. It has already been established that reducing time delays is the most important factor in saving lives. Consequently, every event during a fire is measured in terms of its duration, and the effectiveness of any action taken to improve survival is measured in terms of the time it saves. By ranking actions according to time saved, these authors found that a combination of actions was most effective. This combination was: installing lifelines, moderately decreasing air leakage and decreasing the fire growth rate. Changing ventilation leakage alone was much less effective, as was altering the CO (carbon monoxide), sensor alarm threshold. These results confirm an earlier fault-tree study on escape from mine fires. The fault-tree study had shown that, with the exception of delays, single factor changes have minimal impact. Significant reductions in fire fatalities only take place with multiple factor changes. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Coal Coal Mining Disaster Planning Fires Minerals Mining Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Coal-mining Coal-processing Disaster-planning Disaster-prevention Fire-safety Mine-disasters Mine-escapes Mine-fires Mine-shafts Mineral-processing Mining-industry

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• Series:
  Mining Publications
• ISSN:
  0026-5187
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRC - Pittsburgh Research Center
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  45
• Issue:
  8
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:10012296
• Citation:
  Min Eng 1993 Aug; 45(8):1077-1083
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1993
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Mining Engineering
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3dcfa368ab64f405291b61b14692142e5edddf3ab2d218d683f03e09925b4dc5224cb3474488902844afa25a3ed1c97f5ba28a85aef9f290b27d15679dbe1255
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/220271/cdc_220271_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.38 MB ]