Chemical Engineering Coursework

Community Risk Mitigation Measures
Name
Columbia Southern University

Community Risk Mitigation Measures
Fire outbreaks are much destructive since they lead to loss of properties and life. The victims may get traumatized, disabled or even death. In the highly dense areas, the fire risks are higher due to the daily activities people do engage in their daily activities (Thompson et al., 2014).
Areas surrounded by petroleum, gas, and power plants are at higher risks than all others, due to the presence of highly flammable substances and their conduits and pipes. This study is aimed at identifying the mitigation and prevention measure of fire disasters, and how they can be used in community protection.
A case is in the Garden Creek gas compression plant is prone to the risk of exploding where its effects can be experienced in at a wide area (Thompson et al., 2014). It is due to a chain of reactions that take place in the plant.
A gas plant is under construction within a distance of a quarter mile from Garden Creek gas compression plant. It poses a risk to the occupant of the area of the McKenzie County.
Presence of gas pipelines running beneath or near the residential area is risky since in case of leakage the gas may be ignited and extensive damage.
Another possible hazardous case is where the gas facilities and conduction pipelines are not well protected to restrict from interference from unauthorized people.
The fire disasters are capable of affecting everyone, as long as they are in the area of risk within the vicinity of the gas plant.

The highly populated areas have more risks of fire outbreaks due to the presence of different vigorous activities in the regions.
There is a case that happened in the Minnesota where there are higher fire outbreak cases due to its high population density where at least once a year massive destruction of properties takes place due to fire tragedies (Volpenheim & Hageman, 2015).
For instance, the fire tragedy case in the Keith Henninggard and Karen Rybay’s house had severe repercussions to the inhabitants. They were left homeless and destroyed the crops and vegetation in the vicinity. The animals in the field were killed and some severely injured.
These three cases are potentially detrimental to the community, especially the where the two gas plants are near each other. In case one of the happen to explode of such, the surrounding community would severely have destroyed.
The situation at the Rybay’s house took about two and half hours to be contained, where it had almost cleared all properties in the area. This shows that if an extensive situation like gas plant explosion happens, the massive damage would have happened before the situation is controlled.
There is slower reaction rate of response of these cases from the responsible fire control units. It is due to the ineffective instruments and machines.
The community around North Dakota is not well equipped with knowledge and tools to control fire outbreaks thus severance of cases when they occur (Thompson et al., 2014).
The causes of fires are mostly due to improper following and adherence to the legal framework as well as community safety measures. There are also natural causes of earthquakes, which may trigger fires.
References
Calkin, D. E., Cohen, J. D., Finney, M. A., & Thompson, M. P. (2014). How risk management can prevent future wildfire disasters in the wildland-urban interface. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(2), 746-751.
Volpenheim, S., & Hageman, J. (2015). VIDEO+STORY: Fires rage through North Dakota, Minnesota. Grandforksherald.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018, from http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/3723191-videostory-fires-rage-through-north-dakota-minnesota