Recent Enhancements and Extensions of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency FIRE Database (53)

Abstract

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Fire Events Records Exchange (FIRE) Database is meanwhile in its seventh phase (2023 – 2025) aiming on collecting fire events data from the operating experience of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in different NEA member countries. After twenty years of operation the Database is meanwhile mature enough for different types of applications. Currently, the FIRE Project has fourteen member countries, ten from Europe and two each from Asia and North America.

The FIRE Database is intended to support deterministic as well as probabilistic fire safety assessment required to be carried out over the operational lifetime and partly also during the decommissioning phase of NPPs in Europe and abroad. This presentation gives a brief overview of the Database and some recent applications demonstrating the added value to the users from nuclear industry, licensees, and their consultants as well as regulators and Technical Safety Organisations (TSOs). Typical examples for applications of the Database are insights on the apparent and root causes of the fire events stored in the Database and corresponding trends observed, observations from the suppression of fires and conclusions on the firefighting strategies, or generic data on fire occurrence frequencies for different types of reactors and various plant operational states (POS). Furthermore, some possible future applications and potential extensions of the Database are presented.