Multiple pool fires: Occurrence, simulation, modeling and management

•When two or more pool fires burn interactively they are termed multiple pool fires (MPF).•MPFs exert impacts which are significantly different from the sum total impacts of the constituent single pool fires (SPFs).•MPFs are fairly common in process industries and known to be highly destructive.•Yet, compared to SPFs not much work has been done to understand the nature and the impacts of the MPFs.•This paper is arguably the first-ever attempt at surveying the MPF state-of-the-art.

When two or more pool fires burn in such close proximity of one another that they can influence each other, they are termed ‘multiple pool fires’ (MPF). The characteristics and the structure of MPFs are significantly different from that of stand-alone pool fires. Even though MPFs have known to occur fairly often in chemical process industries, much lesser work has been done towards simulation, modeling and control of MPFs as compared to stand-alone pool fires.This paper is perhaps the first-ever attempt at surveying the MPF state-of-the-art. It recounts MPF accidents and catalogs the controlled experiments that have been done to understand the mechanism and impact of MPFs. Attempts to model MPFs have been assessed and possible ways to manage MPFs have been touched upon.