Getting Started with ioFIRST

ioFIRST is used primarily to determine and initial rank ordering of site or unit hazards related to fixed facilities. It should be noted that ioFIRST should not be used to perform quantitative risk assessment.

As ioFIRST is loaded, you are presented with its home page, which has four buttons: "New Facility," "Calculator," "Reporter," and "Manager." The "New Facility" button allows you to start a new wizard for defining process units within the facility. You are only allowed to work on one facility at a time.

Once all process units are defined, you can return home to calculate the Site Ranking Score for the entire facility using the "Calculator" button. Alternatively, you can obtain a report for all or selected process units. This report will be sent to your supplied email directly.

The "Manager" button allows you to remove or modify an existing process unit within the current facility.

To get started, you must define a facility by clicking on the "New Facility" button on the home page. Within a defined facility, process units are defined in order to obtain the Site Ranking Score for that facility. The inputs required generally include:

• chemical identity
• age of the facility
• number of incidents that requires activating emergency response
• quantity of released materials and its storage temperature
• limiting concentrations
• explosion yield factor
• population impact information

ioFIRST leads you step-by step through the entire wizard for each process unit. Once a process unit is defined, you have several options:

• start a new process
• obtain current process unit score/distances
• get the report for all process units
• return to home page for other options

If you return to home page after defining all process units, you can obtain the Site Ranking Score for the facility by clicking on the "Calculator" button. You may also obtain the report and have it sent to your supplied email by clicking on the "Reporter" button and following its instructions.

The home page also allows you to manage your process units within the current facility using the "Manager" button.

To start a new facility, simply click on the "New Facility" button.

ioFIRST Tutorials

XYZ Houston, TX Facility:

Two process units are located at the XYZ Houston, TX facility, one of which is a process vessel containing 10,000 lbs of anhydrous ammonia. The storage temperature is 25 C. The other is also a process vessel containing 6,000 lbs of hydrochloric acid at -85 C.

The facility is 25 years old and there have been 4 release incidents that required activating the facility emergency response programs in the last 5 years.

Assume 25 C as ambient temperature and ERPG-2 limiting concentration value (200 ppm) for ammonia 20 ppm for hydrochloric acid. Accept explosion yield factor and population impacts as defaults.

• On the home page, click "New Facility" button
• Click on "Next" to choose the default method
• Enter followings for the indicated fields:
  • Facility Name: XYZ Houston, TX
  • Process Unit: Ammonia Storage
  • Facility Age: 25
  • Number of Incidents: 4
  • Chemical Identity: Ammonia
• Click on "Next"
• Enter 10,000 lbs for "material quantity"
• Keep all values and click on "Next"
• Accept all defaults relating exposed impact on population
• Click on "New Process" to start the hydrochloric acid process unit
• Repeat Steps 2 through 7 with hydrochloric acid at the given input information
• Click on "Home" after Step 7.11. Click on "Calculator" to obtain the Site Ranking Score for the XYZ Houston, TX facility. This should be 8.21.

• On home page, click on "Reporter" button
• Select "Include all defined processes" and click on "Generate Report"
• Fill in your information and identify your desires to be notified of our products/services
• Click on "Get Report." The report will be sent to your supplied email. Be sure that you enter correct email address.

You may also be able to remove and modify the process units within the defined facility. Simply follow these steps:

• On the home page, click "Manager" button
• Select "process unit of interest"
• Click on desired buttons and follow instructions

ioFIRST Methods

ioFIRST is a hazard identification and first level risk screening tool that addresses health, safety, and environmental hazards from acute, episodic releases of hazardous materials, especially those with potential for impact off-site. It is designed to primarily to determine an initial rank ordering of site or unit hazards related to fixed facilities. It should not be used to perform quantitative risk assessments.

Currently, ioFIRST uses ioMosaic in-housed and simplified hazard estimation methodologies. In the coming versions, it will include both Dow's Fire & Explosion as well as Chemical Exposure Indexes. Models for transport facilities will also be included.

ioFIRST in-housed models have been widely validated and compared against published data for commonly used chemicals. The models consider adjustments based on age, incident history, surrounding populations, and a method of combining the scores associated with each unit or site. The hazard models and the hazard criteria are discussed in the Technical Basis and Assumptions document.

The function of ioFIRST scores is to enable comparisons of relative hazards both within and across different sites, and ranking of those process units and sites according to their potential to cause major public emergencies involving episodic chemical releases. The relatively more hazardous process units and sites can then be identified for subsequent risk screening. Certain nominal risks may be dismissed after initial screening while others will be so clearly unacceptable that the company will want to move immediately from screening to implementing specific risk mitigation measures.

ioFIRST is by no means all-inclusive of all conceivable hazards and their ramifications. However, it does consider the more common, as well as particularly dangerous hazards that a facility handling chemicals may experience. Results are conservative in that scores are determined for the largest amount of each chemical that could be accidentally released, regardless of the likelihood of such a release.

For further information on overview of ioFIRST procedure and calculation methodologies, click here.