Emergency Incidents Research Articles

VRDD: vehicular relevance‐based data dissemination in a vehicular ad hoc network

Safety message (SM) dissemination in vehicular ad hoc network needs to be fast as it allows vehicles to become alert and avoid adverse situations. An SM usually gets disseminated within a topology by multi-hop broadcast technique. Existing protocols have proposed various controlled flooding mechanisms to address the issues of broadcast storm and network partition. However, no work has been done to take care the direction of message dissemination. In a real scenario, all vehicles within an area of interest (AOI) are not equally affected by an emergency incident. The vehicles of the road where the incident happened, or the vehicles of roads which are connected to incident location by nearby junctions, are most affected and hence are more relevant to receive the SM as fast as possible. Hence, this study proposes a novel method to predict the relevance of vehicles using a distributed algorithm and heuristically tries to disseminate SM toward the relevant vehicles. The authors have compared their work with three state of-the-art algorithms and found that vehicular relevance-based data dissemination is compatible with the existing algorithms on the metrics of packet loss and dissemination delay, but clearly leading in the metric of relevant dissemination.

Emergency safety evacuation decision based on dynamic Gaussian Bayesian network

Emergency incidents in public areas with high pedestrian density may lead to chaos and congestion, which threaten the safety of pedestrians. Therefore, management departments need to make rapid and accurate evacuation decisions. The evacuation decision-making model proposed in this paper consists of three parts: pedestrian distribution prediction model, pedestrian flow calculation model and path situation and feedback correction model. Considering the dynamic, random and uncertain characteristics of pedestrian distribution on the road network, this paper uses dynamic Gaussian Bayesian network to predict pedestrian distribution. Several classical pedestrian flow velocity calculation formulas are introduced as pedestrian flow calculation model, including the Furin model, Tangming model and Liu Dongdong model. Path length, evacuation time and pedestrian density are used as three factors to evaluate the route situation. Two feedback correction methods are proposed to guide pedestrians flow reasonably. They are route planning method and diversion rate method. Taking Wuhan Guanggu Metro Station as an example, the simulation results in GENIE show that the evacuation decision model in this paper can effectively evacuate pedestrians and reduce risk.

206 Deprescribing in Frail Older People Transitioning to Long-term Care: a Randomized Controlled Trial Using STOPPFrail Criteria

Abstract Background Older people with advanced frailty are among the highest consumers of prescription medications. When life expectancy is limited, the use of multiple medications may be unnecessary or burdensome. STOPPFrail criteria were recently developed to assist clinicians with deprescribing decisions in frail older people approaching end-of-life. The aim of this study was to examine whether long-term medications could be safely discontinued in frail older people using STOPPFrail criteria. Methods We recruited hospitalized adults aged ≥75 years with polypharmacy (≥5 long-term medications) that were transitioning to nursing home care. Participants were eligible if their Clinical Frailty Scale score was ≥7 and if their attending physician indicated that he/she “would not be surprised if the patient died in the next 12 months”. Patients were randomized to single time point pre-discharge STOPPFrail-guided deprescribing or routine pharmaceutical care. The primary outcome was change in the number of regular medications at 3 months. Secondary outcomes included emergency hospital transfers, incident falls, fractures and mortality. Results Results are presented for the first 100 enrolled patients. The mean (±standard deviation [SD]) age of study participants was 85.1 (±5.7) and 61% were female. Intervention (n = 49) and control group (n = 51) participants were prescribed a mean (±SD) of 11.5 (±3.0) and 10.9 (±3.5) regular medications, respectively, at baseline. The mean (±SD) change in the number of regular medications at 3 months was -2.7 (±2.8) in the intervention group and -0.6 (±2.6) in the control group (estimated difference 2.1 ±0.6, 95% confidence interval 0.8 -3.3, p=0.001). Ten intervention participants and 14 control participants died within 3 months of randomization (20.4% vs 27.4%, p=0.49). There was no significant difference between groups for emergency hospital transfers, incident falls or fractures. Conclusion STOPPFrail-guided deprescribing significantly reduced medication burden in frail older people without adversely affecting clinical outcomes in the prospective 3 months.

Smart Firefighting System for Smart Cities Adopting Fog/Edge Computing

Security ought to be the highest concern for everyone’s sovereignty from prospective destruction caused by unusual incidents or intruders. Constant monitoring mostly refers to protection against hostile forces. Home security confirms smart decision making at the peak time, activated alarms and detectors are to be avail 24/7. Highest inspiration of this proposed system is to notify the emergency incidents to the appropriate authorities like fire station, police station and the residence owner if the owner is not in house. To prove the domino effect support Vector Machines (SVM) algorithms are implemented and tested. In this paper we explore close watch and stay connected devices and also peace of mind through controlling and monitoring our homes by adopting Fog/Edge computing technologies.

Machine vision based smart parking system using Internet of Things

It is expected that in the next decade, majority of world population will be living in cities. Better public services and infrastructures in the city are needed to cope with the booming population. City vehicles that cruising for parking have indirectly causing traffic, making one harder to travel around the city. Thus, a smart parking system can certainly lays the foundation to build a smart city. This paper proposed a cost-effective IoT smart parking system to monitor city parking space and provide real-time parking information to drivers. Moreover, instead of the conventional approach that uses embedded sensors to detect vehicles in the parking area, camera image and machine vision technology are used to obtain the parking status. In the prototype, twenty outdoor parking lots are covered using a 5 megapixel camera connected to Raspberry Pi 3 installed at the 5th floor of the nearby building. Machine vision in this project that involved motion tracking and Canny edge detection are programmed in Python 2 using OpenCV technology. Corresponding data is uploaded to an IoT platform called Ubidots for possible monitoring activity. An Android mobile application is designed for user to download real-time data of parking information. This paper introduces a low cost smart parking system with the overall detection accuracy of 96.40%. Also, the mobile application allows users to alert other car owners for any emergency incidents and double parking blockage. The developed system can provide a platform for users to search for empty car parking with ease and reduce the traffic issues such as illegal double parking especially in the urban area.

Emergency calls during the 2013 southern Ontario ice storm: case study of Vaughan

PurposeResponding to emergency incidents by emergency response organizations such as fire, ambulance and police during large disaster and emergency events is very important. The purpose of this paper is to provide some insights into response patterns during the 2013 ice storm in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, using temporal and spatial analyses.Design/methodology/approachThe City of Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service data set containing all responses to fire and other emergency incidents from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2016 was used. The 2013 Southern Ontario ice storm occurred from December 20, 2013 to January 1, 2014, and, for this study, December 20–31 is considered the “study period.” Temporal, spatial and spatiotemporal analyses of responses during the study period are carried out and are compared with the same period in other years (2009–2012 and 2014–2016).FindingsThe findings show that temporal patterns of response attributes changed significantly during the 2013 ice storm. Similarly, the spatial pattern of responses during the 2013 ice storm showed some major differences with other years. The spatiotemporal analyses also demonstrate significant variations in responses in the city during different hours of the day in the ice storm days.Originality/valueThis study is the first study to examine the spatiotemporal patterns of responses made by a fire department during the 2013 ice storm in Canada. It provides some insights into the differences between response volumes, temporal and spatial distributions during large emergency events (e.g. ice storm) and normal situations. The results will help in mitigating the number of responses in the future through public education and technological changes. Moreover, the results will provide fire departments with information that could help them prepare for such events by possible reallocation of resources.

Crisis management training using discrete-event simulation and virtual reality techniques

Conducting emergency drills in an actual environment is workforce and resources intensive. Hence, organisations often hesitate to conduct emergency exercises frequently. Because of the limited number of opportunities to conduct drills in a year, the content of the emergency drills can only focus on common cases and exclude rare cases. This constraint also restricts the members of crisis response teams from exploring and verifying new methods for tackling a crisis. Therefore, this research uses information and communication technology (ICT), virtual reality (VR) and discrete-event simulation (DES) technologies to develop a hazard simulation system with the capability to recreate large scale and multi-agency emergency incidents that would be otherwise too costly, complex and dangerous to reproduce in the actual system. With this system, organisations can conduct emergency drills inside a virtual world having a close correspondence with their real physical apparition. This training method is called virtual collaborative simulation-based training (VCST). Two laboratory-based studies were conducted to examine user perceptions about the VCST method. A total of 60 university students majored in managerial-related subjects were enrolled, and the results showed that the proposed method appears to be a feasible approach for practising crisis management training. Further research is needed to verify the findings in larger samples and different populations.

Repertoires of collaboration: incorporation of social media help requests into the common operating picture

ABSTRACTDisasters present us with dynamic and emergent multi-stakeholder scenarios. Complex decision-making is supported by Emergency Management Organisation (EMO) ‘command and control’ disaster response systems that if pushed to failure, present problems in the development and monitoring of situational awareness. Nowhere is this more evident than when the general public use social media platforms to report crisis incidents when the official emergency management hotline (e.g. Triple Zero (000) in Australia) is overwhelmed or not available. This causes a number of issues for EMO as it is difficult to verify and determine the accuracy and veracity of social media posts and how to best incorporate the information within them into situational awareness for the assessment of and response to, an emergency incident. This paper analyses interview data from five Australian EMO that outlines and discusses these issues in detail. As a result of this analysis, we suggest that developing a supplementary ‘repertoires of collaboration’ approach to incorporating social media posts into the development of situational awareness during a disaster event, would help improve disaster response outcomes. We then recommend a way forward through the application of the Negotiated Arrangements for the Common Operating Picture (COP) in Extreme Events framework.

THE EFFECT OF THE FIRST AID SOCIALIZATION IN ACCIDENTS TO INCREASING YOUTH SKILLS IN HANDLING EMERGENCIES IN DAILY LIVING

Background: First aid is an initial action that must be immediately given to victims who experience emergency problems due to an accident or emergency incident or by sudden illness before the arrival of an ambulance, doctor or other related officer. Emergency First Aid Issues are often still considered by most people as the sole responsibility of health workers. Even though the reality in the field of participation or community involvement can be very influential, ranging from reducing pain, alleviating suffering, to saving one's life.Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the first aid socialization in accidents to increasing youth skills in handling emergencies in daily living in the Jedong Cangkring Village, Prambon Sub-District, Sidoarjo District, East Java Province, Indonesia.Method: This research is a quantitative study with a quasy experiment design with a pretest-post-test control group design approach. The sample in this study was taken with a simple random sampling technique. The method of data collection uses primary data, by providing socialization in the form of counseling and demonstration, then looking at youth skills by using the checklist. Data analysis using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Mann Withney U Test with a significance level of 0.05.Results: The results showed 45% of respondents aged 19-21 years, 55% of respondents had never received information about P3K, 55% of respondents had a school status with a secondary education level, 60% of respondents had sufficient knowledge about first aid. Statistical analysis with the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test obtained ρ = 0.003<α = 0.05, which means there is an effect of socialization on skills. Mann Withney U Test results obtained ρ = 0.023<α = 0.05, which means there are different skills between the intervention group and the control group.Conclusion: The influence of the first aid socialization in accidents to increasing youth skills in handling emergencies in daily living. Nurses are expected to be able to improve community understanding and skills regarding emergency management in the community. Keyword: Youth skill, first aid socialization, emergency accidents.

A New Strategy for Swiftwater Rescue from Roadways during Urban and Small Stream Flash Flooding

Introduction:The swiftwater rescue (SWR) concept of operations (CONOPS) is to access as many victims as quickly as possible using strategies and tactics that maximize safety and minimize risk to all involved. “Reach, throw, row, go” has defined the primary water rescue strategy for 50+ years. However, this paradigm, originally designed for rescue from swimming pools, ponds and lakes, slow-moving rivers, and the ocean, is not conducive to SWR incidents involving submerged vehicles, which is the most common scenario during urban and small stream flash flooding.Aim:To present a new SWR strategy for urban and small stream flood response.Methods:Water rescue strategies and tactics were mapped against the SWR CONOPS to determine which ones are most likely to be successful in the rescue of victims trapped in submerged vehicles.Results:Rescue should be attempted via high water vehicles (HWVs) whenever possible, followed by watercraft and “go rescues” using advanced line systems techniques and/or tethered rescuers, dependent on incident characteristics. Positioning HWVs at the incident site permits rescuers to access victims quickly from the rear or sides of the vehicle, thereby reducing rescuer time in floodwaters. Multiple sequential rescues can be made since victims are held and medically monitored in the cargo area rather than transporting them to shore individually.Discussion:SWR from submerged vehicles is unique among emergency incidents because neither shelter-in-place nor self-evacuation are tenable options until the water recedes. "Reach" and "throw" rescue attempts are only possible if the victim is close to shore. Watercraft operations, whether motorized or manually pulled, can be technically complex, require numerous rescuers, and typically take 30-60 minutes per vehicle. Use of HWVs meets the CONOPS for SWR on flooded roadways since this strategy facilitates the rescue of multiple victims quickly while reducing the time rescuers spend in the water.

Features of design, construction and operation of underground tunnels and tunnel structures in dense urban areas

The development of a modern city and the increase of its transport infrastructure, in particular metro facilities, has a significant impact on the urban environment and requires the development and implementation of a set of special protective measures. Moreover, if the construction of metro station complexes is carried out, as a rule, in relatively free areas with minimal impact on the surrounding buildings, then during the construction of tunnels and tunnel structures, engineering communications, buildings and structures located on the earth’s surface, including transport facilities, architectural monuments and cultural heritage objects fall into the zone of their influence. The effectiveness of design solutions for the protection of objects that are in the zone of influence of the construction of underground structures is largely determined by the degree of reliability of the assessment of geotechnical conditions and the results of the survey of the technical condition of building structures. Analysis of the causes of the formation and development of emergency situations and incidents arising in the construction and operation of underground structures shows that they are mainly the result of the use of unreliable initial engineering-geological and hydrogeological conditions, significantly changing due to intensive urban development. The resulting barrage effect, changes in groundwater levels and directions that are not taken into account at the design stage, can be accompanied by significant deterioration of soil properties and the General stress-strain state at the base of existing buildings and structures. This suggests the need for careful study of the properties of soils at significant depths, the development of forecasts of possible changes of the state of the soil massif and hydrogeological conditions, the implementation of a comprehensive survey of the bases of closely spaced buildings and structures, and significantly larger volume of engineering-geological surveys compared to the current regulations.

Exploring ISO31000 Risk Management during Dynamic Fire and Emergency Operations in Western Australia

Firefighting remains an inherently dangerous occupation with serious injuries and fatalities reported globally. The Australasian Fire Authorities Council adopt ISO31000 as the standard of risk management for all firefighting and mitigation operations. However, previous studies have reported that decisions made by incident controllers during dynamic emergencies are typically reactionary and only partially compliant with the ISO31000 process. This paper describes research using new qualitative and quantitative data that support incident controllers in managing risk during dynamic fire and emergency situations, in accordance with ISO31000. The research was completed through two studies. The first study explored risk attitudes of serving fire service officers through semistructured interviews and in-depth structured surveys. The second study identified the severity of firefighting consequences and likelihood through analysis of Western Australian fire service safety and incident reports between January 1st, 2001 and January 1st, 2015. The overall and conditional probability of specific injuries during the various tasks undertaken during emergency incidents was calculated using Bayesian statistical analysis. The findings indicate that whilst current practices are arguably effective in preventing worst case consequences being realised, improvements in operational risk management can be made in accordance with ISO31000 during emergencies and in pre-incident planning.

Application of the Incident Command System to the Hospital Biocontainment Unit Setting.

High-consequence pathogens create a unique problem. To provide effective treatment for infected patients while providing safety for the community, a series of 10 high-level isolation units have been created across the country; they are known as Regional Ebola and Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (RESPTCs). The activation of a high-level isolation unit is a highly resource-intensive activity, with effects that ripple across the healthcare system. The incident command system (ICS), a standard tool for command, control, and coordination in domestic emergencies, is a command structure that may be useful in a biocontainment event. A version of this system, the hospital emergency incident command system, provides an adaptable all-hazards approach in healthcare delivery systems. Here we describe its utility in an operational response to safely care for a patient(s) infected with a high-consequence pathogen on a high-level isolation unit. The Johns Hopkins Hospital created a high-level isolation unit to manage the comprehensive and complex needs of patients with high-consequence infectious diseases, including Ebola virus disease. The unique challenges of and opportunities for providing care in this high-level isolation unit led the authors to modify the hospital incident command system model for use during activation. This system has been tested and refined during full-scale functional and tabletop exercises. Lessons learned from the after-action reviews of these exercises led to optimization of the structure and implementation of ICS on the biocontainment unit, including improved job action sheets, designation of physical location of roles, and communication approaches. Overall, the adaptation of ICS for use in the high-level isolation unit setting may be an effective approach to emergency management during an activation.

Fuzzy Emergency Model and Robust Emergency Strategy of Supply Chain System under Random Supply Disruptions

For random distributors under supply disruptions caused by emergency incidents, a fuzzy emergency model and a robust emergency strategy of the supply chain system are studied. First, for a kind of supply chain system composed of a strategic manufacturer, a backup manufacturer, and multiple distributors, the basic emergency models, including the inventory models and a total cost model, are constructed under random supply disruptions. Then, based on the Takagi‐Sugeno fuzzy system, the basic emergency models of the supply chain system are converted into a discrete switching model, which can realize soft switching among the basic emergency models. Furthermore, according to the different inventory levels, the strategic manufacturer’s production strategies and the distributors’ ordering strategies are designed to reduce the inventory costs of the node enterprises in supply chain system. Second, by defining a discrete piecewise Lyapunov function in each maximal overlapped‐rules group, a new fuzzy robust emergency strategy for the supply chain system is proposed through the principle of parallel distributed compensation. This emergency strategy can not only restore the impaired supply chain to the normal operation state but also keep the total cost of the supply chain at a low level and guarantee the robust stability of the emergency supply chain system. Finally, the simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed fuzzy robust emergency strategy of the supply chain system.

Frequency and clinical spectrum of in-flight medical incidents during domestic and international flights.

Most medical practitioners are not specifically trained to diagnose or manage in-flight medical incidents, yet there may occur a moral obligation to do so when least expected. We felt that knowledge of the frequency of emergency versus non-serious medical incidents, in addition to the clinical spectrum of incidents most often encountered, would be of interest to medical practitioners and, in particular, critical care physicians, who happen to find themselves asked to assist with such events. To this end we collaborated with the Department of Medical Services of a major Australian airline to define the incidence, severity, and type of all in-flight medical events encountered over the course of a year's flights. We audited in-flight medical data collected over a continuous 12-month period, which covered 131,890 international and domestic flight sectors transporting more than 27 million passengers. There was an average of 296 medical events per month (3555 in total) making the per-flight incidence of a medical event approximately 1:40 (2.7%). Of these in-flight incidents, 915 (26%) were graded as emergencies, with the commonest descriptors of such incidents being either loss of consciousness (37%) or a suspected cardiovascular event (12%). Six of these 915 emergencies proved fatal. Twenty-one flights were diverted due to medical incidents (<0.016% of all flights), with 52% of these attributed to suspected cardiac events. In this series, medical in-flight events were recorded in approximately one in 40 flights, whereas medical emergencies occurred in approximately one in 150 flights.

The Role of Hospital Medicine in Emergency Preparedness: A Framework for Hospitalist Leadership in Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.

Recent high-profile mass casualty events illustrate the unique challenges that such occurrences pose to normal hospital operations. These events create patient surges that overwhelm hospital resources, space, and staff. However, in most healthcare systems, hospitalists currently show no integration within emergency planning or incident response. This review aims to provide hospitalists with an overview of disaster management principles so that they can engage their hospitals' disaster management system with a working fluency in emergency management and the incident command system. This review also proposes a framework for hospitalist involvement in preparation, response, and coordination during periods of crisis.

Effect of process parameters influencing the chemical modification of activated carbon fiber for carbon dioxide removal

Abstract Climate change issues and acid rain episodes have triggered new research directions and the conceptualization of new preventive approaches to reduce toxic gases from entering the environment. The reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the indoor environment are also one of the challenging human safety issues during emergency incidents and rescues; for instance, a building fire. The use of an activated carbon fiber (ACF) based mask is not only effective to filter CO2 but it is also practically easy to use during such demanding situations. Such modified adsorbents will have high adsorption volume, fast adsorption rates and good thermal, acid and alkaline resistance properties. For the emergency mode considering fires, the major task is atmospheric recovery. Thus, CO2 concentration in the post-fire smoke could be high. The smoke in the room causes suffocations and unconsciousness leading to fatal injuries. In this study, ACF was modified using copper nitrate trihydrate [Cu (NO3)2.3H2O] by impregnation and carbonization (450 °C), followed by its characterization. The modified ACF (Cu-ACF-12) showed large surface area (1147 m2 g−1), high micropore volume (0.45 cm3 g−1) and an average pore size of 1.57 nm. CO2 removal tests were carried out in a lab scale fixed bed adsorption column using the modified ACF. The process parameters were optimized based on a Box-Behnken Design (BBD) and tested in the following ranges: gas flow rate – 150–250 ml min−1, moisture content – 0–40% and modification of the ACF impregnated with copper (Cu) – 4–12 wt.%. The experimental results were statistically interpreted to elucidate the main and interaction effects. The modification of ACF showed positive effects on CO2 removal, while gas flow rate and moisture content decreased the CO2 removal. Under the optimal conditions, (gas flow rate – 150 ml min−1, moisture content – 0% and modification of the ACF – 8%), CO2 removal capacity of 2.31 mmol of CO2 g−1 Cu-ACF was obtained.

Bounded Rank Optimization for Effective and Efficient Emergency Response

Effective placement of emergency response vehicles (such as ambulances, fire trucks, police cars) to deal with medical, fire or criminal activities can reduce the incident response time by few seconds, which in turn can potentially save a human life. Owing to its adoption in Emergency Medical Services (EMSs) worldwide, existing research on improving emergency response has focused on optimizing the objective of bounded time (i.e. number of incidents served in a fixed time). Due to the dependence of this objective on temporal uncertainty, optimizing the bounded time objective is challenging. In this paper, we propose a new objective referred to as the bounded rank (which is the number of incidents served by a base station whose rank is below a bounded rank value) that has nice theoretical properties and serves as an indirect substitute for the bounded time objective. To understand the theoretical properties of this new objective in the context of the spatio-temporal uncertainty associated with emergency incidents, we first provide a Poisson Point Process (PPP) model of the emergency response problem. We then formally define the bounded rank objective in the context of the model and demonstrate that the bounded rank metric is monotone submodular. Due to the monotone submodularity of the objective, we can propose a greedy approach that can provide an {\em a priori} guarantee of 50\% from optimal and a much tighter {\em posteriori} guarantee. Practically and more importantly, we demonstrate that optimizing this bounded rank objective on simulators validated on real data (and not just on the abstract PPP model) provides better results than the best known approach for optimizing bounded time objective.

The Dermal Exposure Risk Management and Logic eTookit: Characterizing and managing dermal exposure during emergency management operations.

Emergency management and operations (EMO) personnel require up-to-date information to make informed decisions during natural and man-made disasters. However, information gaps present challenges for accessing human health risk assessment and risk management strategies for dermal exposure. This article describes the development of a decision support system, the Dermal Exposure Risk Management and Logic (DERMaL) eToolkit. The DERMaL eToolkit provides information on key resources used in emergency incidents. Resources were classified according to response phase, resource categories, and information category and evaluated on reliability, accessibility, and preference by subject matter experts in emergency management fields. These rankings were used to generate a value of information score, unique for each resource, which aids in developing reference lists for users during each incident phase. This tool will identify and prioritize information resources on dermal risks, and can readily find the most relevant information to suit EMO needs. The DERMaL eToolkit can be used as an aid in finding information resources targeted to scenario-driven needs by providing well-vetted and prioritized resources related to dermal hazards, exposure, and risk assessments for EMO.

FORMING OF TECHNOLOGICAL FLOWS PARAMETERS LIST DETERMINED THE FIRE RISK

Oil refineries are a very likely source of man-made threats to humans and the environment. To avoid occurrence of emergency incidents, it is necessary to invest in the processing plants and other industries for industrial safety. When drawing up financing action plans, it is necessary to identify the most dangerous bottlenecks in the plant's technological chain in terms of the risk of fire or explosion. Identification of the most critical parts of the technological process is possible by ranking the facilities according to the parameters of hazardous substances circulating in equipment and pipelines. It is shown that the process of burning of a hazardous substance undergoes several stages – the occurrence of a fire, the development and spread of combustion, the identification of consequences and their elimination. At different stages of a fire or explosion, various indicators serve as hazard criteria. The article is devoted to the formation of a bank of parameters that determine the stage of a fire or explosion. The proposed method - decision making by the Saati method with a qualitative pairwise comparison of the parameters was realized using the example of one of the oil refineries in the Republic of Bashkortostan. In the process of refining the plant, about 20 types of hazardous substances are circulating with a total of about 366 thousand tons. On the basis of the Federal Law «Technical Regulations on Fire Safety Requirements» dated 22.07.2008 No 123-FZ, a list of parameters from 16 items defining the fire hazard of technological flows in the liquid and gaseous aggregate state was formulated. The list obtained is optimized for the stage of a fire or explosion. With the help of the correlation analysis, the parameters in the single-valued pair relationship of significance level 95 % are excluded. The generated sample of four independent parameters of hazardous substances is ranked by the method of paired comparisons and linear convolution. The importance of each independent parameter is established.