Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed

Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

Photos placed in horizontal position

with even amount of white space

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Calculating Fire Risk at Sandia National Laboratories

Fire Protection & Assurance Department

Alice Muña

This briefing presents a methodology for evaluating risk on a building level.

Qualitative Fire Risk Index

Benefits

Improve our Emergency Services Response Time criteria (documented in BNA)

Provide risk-based prioritization model for buildings across the site:

FPA schedule

Maintenance prioritization

Opportunities prioritization

Assumptions

Risk = Probability of a Fire * Consequence

The Fire Consequence Index (FCI) is a relative risk ranking and is not a measure of absolute risk

Categories will be selected and weighted based on their perceived contribution to severity and increased consequence of a fire, given a fire occurs

Fire Consequence Categories

Replacement Value (RPV)

Building Contents Value

Square Footage of the Building

Occupancy Type

Building Population

Fire Alarm

Automatic Sprinkler Protection

Response Time for Fire Department

Special Consequences

Information from FIMS (FCI points given in parentheses)

RPV

>$50 Million (5)

<$50 Million (4)

<$5 Million (2)

<$1 Million (1)

Building Contents Value

>$5 Million (5)

<$5 Million (4)

<$1 Million (3)

<$250 Thousand (1)

Square Footage

>100,000 ft2 (5)

<100,000 ft2 (4)

<50,000 ft2 (2)

<10,000 ft2 (1)

$0

$20

$40

$60

$80

$100

$120

$140

$160

$180

1 75 149 223 297 371 445 519 593 667 741

Millio

ns

Buildings

Replacement Value

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

<$1 Million <$5 Million <$50 Million >$50 Million

Nu

mb

er

of

Bu

ild

ing

s

Replacement Value

From our files…

Occupancy Type: High Hazard (5)

Factory (3)

Utility (3)

Assembly (2)

Storage (2)

Business (Office & Lab) (1)

Building Population >300 (5)

<300 (4)

<100 (2)

<10 (1)

No occupants (0)

From our files…

Working Fire Alarm transmitting to a constantly attended location? (0 if yes, 5 if no)

Automatic sprinkler protection? (0 if yes, 5 if no)

Travel Time- how long will it take the FD to reach the building? Remote Sites (5)

Tech Area III (4)

Tech Area V (3)

Tech Area II, TAIV (2)

Tech Area I (1)

Special Consequences

Special Consequences Nuclear (5)

Exposure to the Public (5)

Accelerators (4)

Critical Infrastructure (4)

Clean Rooms (3)

Explosives (3)

Hazardous Material (3)

Critical Infrastructure Support (3)

𝐹𝐶𝐼 = (𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑖 ∗ 𝑊𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖)

𝑛

𝑖=1

Consequence

Category

Value

Range

Weighting

Factor

Replacement Value

(RPV)

1 - 5 4

Building Contents

Value

1 - 5 3

Square Footage 1 - 5 1

Occupancy Type 1 - 5 1

Building Population 0 - 5 6

Fire Alarm 2 - 5 1

Automatic

Sprinklers

0 - 5 3

Travel Time 1 - 5 2

Special

Consequences

0 - 5 3

Fire Consequence Index-SNL/NM

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Fir

e C

on

se

qu

en

ce

In

de

x V

alu

e (

Ma

x 1

00

)

Buildings

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Fir

e C

on

se

qu

en

ce

In

de

x V

alu

e (

Ma

x 1

00

)

Buildings

Fire Consequence Index-SNL/NM

Highest consequence if a

fire occurred

Buildings with Highest Fire Consequence

High RPV

High Building Contents

High Building Population

Special Hazard Hazardous Materials

Exposure to the Public

Semi-conductor facilities have the

greatest fire consequence, based on

this methodology.

Next Step

More difficult to quantify

Limited data points from Sandia fires

Building missions change over time

Fire Risk = Probability of a Fire * Consequence

Probability Data

DOE Fire Loss Database Fires from all DOE sites reported

Data from 1991-2007

2,541 Events during this time period

Events Categorized: Building Fire

Brush Fire (Wildland Fire)

Vehicle Fire

Other Fire (Fires occurring outside buildings excluding brush fires)

To Calculate Probability

Probability of a fire in a year = 𝟏 − 𝒆−𝝀∗𝟑𝟔𝟓

λ= Average Number of Days between Fires

Poisson Distribution is most often used for rare events where: Occurrences are independent

Average frequency of occurrence for the time period in question is known

Event can be counted in whole numbers

DOE- Building Fire

DOE- Brush Fire

DOE- Vehicle Fire

DOE- Other Fire

$0

$2,000

$4,000

$6,000

$8,000

$10,000

$12,000

$14,000

$16,000

$18,000

$20,000

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Se

ve

rity

(L

os

s/F

ire

)

Probability (Fire Frequency)

Severity vs. Probability 1991-2007

Not included: Los Alamos Fire Cost, ~200 DOE fires that have no dates associated

DOE- Building Fire

DOE- Brush Fire

DOE- Vehicle Fire

DOE- Other Fire

SNL- Building Fire

SNL- Brush Fire

SNL- Vehicle Fire

SNL- Other Fire

$0

$2,000

$4,000

$6,000

$8,000

$10,000

$12,000

$14,000

$16,000

$18,000

$20,000

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Se

ve

rity

(L

os

s/F

ire

)

Probability (Fire Frequency)

Severity vs. Probability 1991-2007

Not included: Los Alamos Fire Cost, ~200 DOE fires that have no dates associated

SNL has a higher probability

of fires than DOE’s average

but has a lower average cost

per fire.

Fire Probability- By Building

Using Space Chargeback data, buildings are broken down into four types of space: General Areas

Administrative, Conference, Hall, Kitchens, Equipment Rooms, and difference in square footage between space chargeback and FIMS

Office Areas

General Office, Management Office, Secretarial Office, Computer Rooms

Lab Areas

General Lab, High Bay Lab, Shop, Special Lab

Storage Areas

Fire Probability- By Building

Using the DOE Fire Loss Database (1991-2007) and Sandia’s recent DOE Fire Loss Reports (2008-2013), we can determine the probability of fires in these four types of spaces

Probability determined using the Poisson Distribution

Space Frequency (λ) Probability

General 0.005069 0.84279

Lab 0.003707 0.74155

Office* 0.000124 0.04425

Storage 0 0

*There has only been one office fire at Sandia in this time frame, so there is

not enough data to determine an accurate frequency.

Probability of a fire in a year = 1 − 𝑒−𝜆∗365

For the entire site

Fire Probabilities

0.00000

0.10000

0.20000

0.30000

0.40000

0.50000

0.60000

0.70000

0.80000

0.90000

0 200 400 600 800 1000

Fir

e P

rob

ab

ilit

y

Buildings

>300 Buildings at 0

Frequency:

Storage Areas

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

FR

I V

alu

e (

Max 1

00)

Fire Probability

Fire Risk Index

Higher Risk Facilities

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

FR

I V

alu

e (

Max 1

00)

Fire Probability

Fire Risk Index

Fire Risk = Probability of a Fire * Consequence

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

1 101 201 301 401 501 601 701

FR

I V

alu

e (

Ma

xim

um

10

0)

Buildings

Fire Risk Index

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

FC

I V

alu

e (

Max 1

00)

Fire Probability

One Year Three Year Five Year

SNL Current Fire Protection Assessment (FPA) Process

Our highest-risk facilities

are on a three-year FPA

cycle.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

FC

I V

alu

e (

Max 1

00)

Fire Probability

One Year Three Year Five Year

SNL Proposed FPA Process

Our highest-risk facilities

are on an annual FPA

cycle. All mission critical

facilities are still on a 3

year cycle.

What’s Next?

Difficult to quantify controls

More Data = Better Results

Implementation of FRI

Thank You!