Most of the pits and ponds installed around an oilfield will be filled with liquids and sludges that are lightly to heavily flammable. This makes the liquids in them inappropriate for some important uses like fire protection and retention. Fire protection ponds are recommended as on-site water sources for oilfields since the risk of a fire is high with so much fuel around. Yet, they also require care and attention during design and installation, or they won’t collect water and have it available when it’s needed the most. Find out why, and how, to add these valuable ponds to your oilfield without giving up important space for other types of treatment pits.
Create a Barrier
When choosing the placement of the fire protection ponds, consider laying them out along the edges of the oilfield to form a barrier of water. One of the greatest dangers on a large-scale oilfield, with many individual drilling pads, is that a fire that starts in one remote corner can spread across a large area rapidly by chaining between them. Ringing, or even partially surrounding a single drilling site with retention ponds, can quickly shut down the spread of fire. This can limit damage to just a few well heads rather than letting the flames spread within hours across hundreds of acres of open oilfield.
Line the Pond
If the ponds for storm water retention or fire protection will only be used occasionally, it can be difficult to justify the cost of lining them. However, lined retention ponds are much more reliable. The extra cost is well worth it when you’re planning to rely on the water to save the oilfield and shut down a raging fire in case of an emergency. Without lining, the water may leak out of the pond unexpectedly and leave it nearly dry when you need it the most. Adding an affordable RPE liner to the retention pond is the best way to ensure it is watertight and will hold every gallon of valuable water you collect or add. The extra cost is well worth the reassurance that the ponds won’t lose water or dry up when there is little rain to refill it.
Plan for Storm Water Collection
The best source of water for filling fire protection ponds around oilfields is storm water runoff. First, it’s the only free source of fresh water suitable for spraying on fires in most oilfields. All other sources of water will either be set aside from using in the hydraulic process or is likely to be contaminated with hydrocarbons from the drilling procedures. Second, storm water management is necessary on the oilfield to prevent unwanted dilution of process water and potential flooding of pits that could cause contamination. Finally, storm water and fire prevention ponds share many ideal characteristics with each other, such as placement around the edges of the oilfield site.
Connecting Hydrants and Pumps
Fire retention ponds are primarily designed to hold enough water for you to pump out to spray directly on a sudden fire. They’ll work as fire barriers even without any active equipment for pumping, but only hydrants can help put out flames far from the water. Dry hydrants are generally recommended for this purpose because they’re designed to only draw water up when it’s needed and won’t have any chance of leaking the rest of the time. However, you’ll have to bring a portable pump along on a truck to use these kinds of hydrants. Consider a range of sprinkler and pumping systems to direct the fire suppression water whenever you might need it.
Protection from Contamination
Finally, it’s important to keep the water as clean as possible after gathering it into a fire retention pond. If there is not a liner in place to keep the various liquids separate, it’s all too easy for a nearby leaking frac or reserve pit to leach hydrocarbons and other flammable chemicals into the fresh water supply. In addition to lining all wastewater pits to keep their liquids inside of them, use a liner on the freshwater ponds as well to stop contamination from the outside in.
Fire retention ponds work well with frac pits and other in-ground water features on the oilfield, but they need to be laid out correctly and delineated clearly with signage. No one should be confused about which pond or pit to draw water from when a fire breaks out on the oilfield. If you’re interested in fire resistant pond liners, to help resist damage in the challenging oilfield environment, look no further than us here at BTL Liners.
