ISO/TC 92/SC 3/WG 6 - Fire Threat to the Environment

This document is applicable to the sampling and analysis of effluents produced during fires that have the potential to cause harm through environmental contamination. It provides additional requirements to those International Standards already published by ISO TC 92/SC 3 for the sampling and analysis of fire effluents from experimental fires and standard tests, specifically as best practice from previously published methodologies. This document does not include pollutant screening of exposed humans or animals. The principle aims for the sampling and analysis of effluents from fires that can result in environmental contamination is therefore to provide information on: — the nature and concentrations of airborne effluents over time and distance; — the nature and concentrations of solid and liquid ground contaminants and “run-off” compounds from firefighting operations over time and distance. This document is principally of interest for the following parties: — environmental regulatory authorities; — public health authorities; — fire investigators; — property owners. This document is intended to be used together with ISO 26367-1 and ISO 26367-2 in assessments of the environmental impact of fire effluents.

This document gives guidelines whose primary focus is the assessment of the adverse environmental impact of fire effluents, including those from fires occurring in commercial and domestic premises, unenclosed commercial sites, industrial and agricultural sites, as well as those involving road, rail and maritime transport systems. It is not applicable to direct acute toxicity issues or wildland fires, which are covered by other existing ISO standards. It is intended to serve as a tool for the development of standard protocols for a) the assessment of local and remote adverse environmental impacts of fires, and the definition of appropriate preventive measures, b) post-fire analyses to identify the nature and extent of the adverse environmental impacts of fires, and c) the collection of relevant data for use in environmental fire hazard assessments. This document is intended as an umbrella document to set the scene concerning what should be considered when determining the environmental impact of fires. It is not a comprehensive catalogue of methods and models defining how to determine the environmental impact of fires, intended to be addressed by other parts of ISO 26367. This document is principally intended for use by firefighters and investigators, building owners and managers, storage facility operators, materials and product manufacturers, insurance providers, environmental regulatory authorities, civil defence organizations and public health authorities.

This document addresses the impact of wildland fires and firefighting activities on the environment (air, water, soil, wildlife and vegetation). It further addresses the impact of wildland fire effluents on exposed human population, including firefighters, as well as food production, land, sea and air traffic, and the built environment. It also describes the environmental impacts of firefighting activities. This document also provides requirements and recommendations to quantify such impacts of wildland fires and to establish post-fire mitigation measures. The wildland fires covered include both natural wildland fires and man-initiated fires, including prescribed burning and agricultural fires, but not peat fires nor coal seam fires. This document is intended to serve as a tool for the development of standard protocols for: — the assessment of local and remote adverse environmental impacts of wildland fires; — the assessment of the effects of smoke and gas exposure on firefighters and exposed human populations. It provides guidance for incident commanders and other responsible or affected parties when decisions regarding firefighting strategies, tactics, and restoration are made. It is intended principally for use by firefighters and investigators, insurance providers, environmental regulatory authorities, civil defence organisations, public health authorities and land owners. This document does not include specific instruction on compiling and reporting the information needed to assess environmental damage caused by a fire incident, nor does it include specific sampling methodologies and analysis requirements. These topics are the focus of documents in the ISO 26367 series. This document does not address either fire damage to the built environment, direct acute toxicity issues, which are covered by other ISO standards, nor does it address economic impact, although the impact of climate change is discussed in Annex D.

ISO 26367-2:2017 specifies a methodology for compiling the information needed to assess the environmental damage caused by a fire incident. This includes conducting a site reconnaissance, establishing data quality objectives and designing sampling programmes. This document also provides a standardized method for reporting the results of the compilation and findings of the analyses, for use in contingency planning or for the assessment of the potential adverse environmental impact of a specific fire incident. This document does not include specific instruction on sampling and analysis of fire effluents. Sampling and analysis are the focus of a future document in the ISO 26367 series. ISO 26367-2:2017 is applicable to uncontrolled fires, including fires in commercial and domestic premises, unenclosed commercial sites, agricultural storage sites, wildland and forest fires, as well as fires involving road, rail and maritime transport systems. ISO 26367-2:2017 focuses on the fire effluents that are environmentally significant, including pollutants causing short-term effects (e.g. pollutants causing biotope damage and components of smog) and long-term effects (e.g. persistent organic pollutants, POP). Since it is not possible to treat all potential pollutants that could be found in fire effluents in a single document, a list of those pollutants specifically addressed in this document is given below: a) pollutants with short-term effects: halogenated acids (HX), metals, nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulates, and sulfur oxides (SOx); b) pollutants with long-term effects: metals, particulates, perfluorinated compounds (PFC), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), and polyhalogenated dioxins and furans (PXDD/PXDF). The reporting template provided in Annex D proposes additional potential pollutants and indicators for inclusion in the compilation. Not all of the pollutants and indicators listed in Table D.1 are relevant to every fire site, and others not mentioned in the table can apply. ISO 26367-2:2017 does not include direct acute toxicity issues on humans, which are covered by other standards, such as ISO 13344 and ISO 13571.

ISO 26367-1:2011 gives guidelines whose primary focus is the assessment of the adverse environmental impact of fire effluents, including those from fires occurring in commercial and domestic premises, unenclosed commercial sites, industrial and agricultural sites, as well as those involving road, rail and maritime transport systems. Its scope does not extend to direct acute toxicity issues, which are covered by other existing International Standards. It is intended to serve as a tool for the development of standard protocols for the assessment of local and remote adverse environmental impacts of fires, and the definition of appropriate preventive measures, post-fire analyses to identify the nature and extent of the adverse environmental impacts, and the collection of relevant data for use in environmental fire hazard assessments. ISO 26367-1:2011 is intended as an umbrella document to set the scene concerning what should be considered when determining the environmental impact of fires. It is not a comprehensive catalogue of methods and models defining how to determine the environmental impact of fires, intended to be addressed by other parts of ISO 26367.