Firesafe

Firesafe

In applications where fire accidents can happen reliable fire protection is the requirement for industrial valves. The valves might be used in the oil and gas, refinery, chemical, and petrochemical industries and must guarantee a reliable and safe shut-off in case of fire. Fire-safe design is an important criterion for such industrial valves. The term fire-safe means the ability of the valve to minimize the amount of process lost (leakage) downstream or to the atmosphere after a fire test – thus being able to do just this in case of a”real” fire in a production line.

Over time there has been some confusion concerning the definition of fire safe valves – the definitions are:

  • Fire Safe by Design:A “fire safe by design” valve is designed to make the valve fire safe, but the valve has not been tested.
  • Fire Safe Tested:A “fire safe tested” valve could have been tested, but the test valves not approved by third party.
  • Fire Safe Approved and Certified:The term “fire safe approved and certified” are for valves that the has been tested, approved, and certified by a third party following the guidelines of i.e. API 607.

The fire-safe ball valves are normally fire-tested to API 607, API 6FA, and BS 6755-Part 2, depending on the construction, as for instance API 607 provides fire test criteria for quarter-turn valves and other valves with nonmetallic seating under pressure, whereas API 6FA provides the fire testing requirements for API 6A and API 6D valves. API 6FA is applicable for metal seated valves.