Everyone at Monument knows we live and breathe safety. We talk about it daily. We do training regularly. We look for ways to improve continuously. And every now and then, we're reminded exactly why we focus on safety as much as we do. It’s also in those moments that we realize the only thing as important as emergency prevention — is our response to it.

And that certainly proved true this past March for our Houston team, when a fire ignited on site due to static build up during a routine flushing procedure. While the task was something the team has successfully performed time and time again, the turn of events required them to demonstrate a very different set of skills — and they truly made it count.

“It was just normal operations for us that day,” Jake Moehring, Operations Manager at Houston explained. “We were flushing material from a tank line into a bucket in preparation to load a rail car. In this case, the line was wet from a recent clean and took several dozen gallons to remove the water. While the flammable product was flowing, a static charge built up, resulting in a spark that ignited the fluid. 

First to react to the flames was an employee working on another railcar who quickly pulled the alarm. As a result, the response team sprung into action. Within a minute, they were at the scene armed with the necessary safety gear and fire equipment.

“A supervisor was on scene first to initially assess the situation so as soon as the response team was appropriately equipped, they could act quickly based on his guidance,” Wayne Price, Houston Area Emergency Services & Security Leader/FSO. “They used fire monitors that can shoot 500 GPM of water from up to 30 ft. away, while an elevated monitor dispensed water from 50 ft. above the rail car, so they could remain at a safe distance until the flames subsided enough to use fire extinguishers. Everyone in the area and those who responded did such a great job. They didn’t panic; but instead trusted their training and acted accordingly.”

And that training is something we take very seriously. Every year, specific operators with extensive plant experience are taken to Texas A&M’s training grounds to perform mock responses to chemical fires. (See pictures throughout this article spotlighting our trainings!)

“Over the course of three days, these employees are off-site performing fire drills in specific units created to replicate similar scenarios to those within the plant,” Wayne shared. “We also set up multiple drills at our facilities throughout the year to get these individuals as much training as possible, so when an incident like this does occur, they know exactly what they’re doing.”

In just 10 min since the alarm first sounded, the entire fire was out. The quick response not only prevented the potential for more lost equipment and costly downtime, but it also spared surrounding rail cars containing other flammable chemicals from causing damage and harm on a much larger scale.

Although a very rare occurrence in a common process, the team didn’t hesitate to also turn this incident into an opportunity to improve. Since taking place in early March, the site has already initiated procedural changes and upgrades.

“Our process safety engineers are thoroughly investigating how we handle static and flammable materials compared to best practices,” Jake added. “We’ve developed new procedures based on these insights, have been conducting more training, and ordered new metal buckets that better dissipate static electricity than the current plastic buckets. We’re really proud of the quality of our response to this incident, so we’re making it our priority to continue to improve in all other areas of our safety protocol as well.”