Emergency response planning · tank farms, refineries, terminals
Avertis models a fire, explosion or toxic release on your own site map using live wind and temperature data, calculates the foam, water, equipment and personnel to NFPA 20 and API RP 2001, and writes the result into your Emergency Response Plan. When the weather or the product changes, you re-run the plan instead of rewriting it.
Early access opens 16 Nov 2026 for selected operators. Built by Alert Disaster Control’s industrial emergency responders and IAMTech’s industrial software engineers.
Why pre-plans fail
Everybody knew what to do on paper.
We asked fire chiefs and firefighting-system engineers how pre-plans fail on the day. The same five problems came up every time.
One product, one wind
Tank contents can change week to week, and that changes the foam application rate. Coastal winds reverse between day and night. Most plans assume one product and one prevailing wind.
Ninety tanks, ninety plans, times eight winds
A refinery with 90+ tanks needs a pre-plan per tank, per wind direction, before hazmat and gas releases. Written by hand, many don’t exist. The ones that do are reviewed once a year and audited every 3–5 years, and the 3-inch binders aren’t with the firefighters.
Foam and water planned once, against assumed conditions
Quantities need updating at the scene as conditions change, not just planned in advance, so the foam and water don’t run out.
Once a 12-inch hose is down, it’s down
Charged 12-inch hose holds about 71 kg of water per metre. Laid on the wrong side of the bund, it can take an hour to move.
No enforced standard
NFPA 1660 is voluntary and doesn’t define what a pre-plan contains, so one refinery has a two-page plan and the next has none.
How it works
Site map to incident command in one system
Put your site on the map
- Esri and Google aerial layers
- CAD drawing overlay (DXF / DWG)
- Your tanks, products and equipment as icons you manage
Set-up wizard · 5–10 min
Model the event
- Thermal radiation: tank, bund and unconfined spill fires, jet fire
- Gaussian dispersion: continuous, instantaneous, bund evaporation
- Overpressure: BST / TNO and TNT
- Results table and burn-down time from tank inventory
Live weather · 60 s default
Write the plan
- Foam, fire-water and containment calculated per scenario
- Plan template based on recognised fire service practice and NFPA; AI drafts sections
- Checked against COMAH, NFPA and IP19
- PDF export with contents page
NFPA 20 · API RP 2001
Run the incident
- Command structure in line with NIMS and JESIP
- METHANE messages and incident action plan
- Task board with a full audit trail
- Briefing templates; one dashboard for several incidents
Same data, plan to command
Compared to what you use today
Where Avertis sits
| Paper or consultant plan | Specialist modelling software | Avertis Intelligence | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | Written once by a consultant; the site team sees the output | A trained modeller; hard to pick up again after months away | Site team, through the set-up wizard. Super users model; others view |
| Weather | One prevailing wind | Entered by hand per run | Live wind and temperature feed, refreshed every 60 s by default |
| Foam and water | Calculated by hand, if at all | Not covered | Calculated to NFPA 20 / API RP 2001 inside the plan |
| Where the plan is | A binder in the chief’s office or the control room | On the modeller’s desktop | The same live plan for everyone responding, in a web browser |
| When the product changes | Reviewed once a year and audited every 3–5 years; the plan waits until then | New study | Change the product and re-run the model and plan |
| During the incident | Binder in the control room | Not used | Command structure, METHANE, task board and audit trail on the same data |
Who it is for
What changes for each role
Know where the kit goes before you lay it
The plan shows the wind, the hazard zones, where to set monitors and how much foam concentrate the tank needs. During the event, the same plan supports incident command, METHANE and JESIP messages and tasks, so everyone from the control room to the crew at the tank works from the same picture. Crews train against the same scenarios as desktop exercises, so you find out whether they can deliver the plan before a real fire does.
Plans that keep up with the site
When a tank changes product, re-run its plan instead of waiting for the next audit. Every plan is checked against COMAH, NFPA and IP19, and every action in an incident is logged with a time stamp for the review.
Can you show you planned properly?
Accountability for a major incident now sits with the executive. If you are asked tomorrow whether you planned properly, and whether the community around you was protected, Avertis gives you the evidence: a current modelled plan for every tank, a time-stamped record of every decision, and the plume on the same map your neighbours recognise. A plan written once and shelved can’t show that.
Who built it
Industrial emergency responders and software engineers
Alert Disaster Control
Oil-well firefighting, blowout control, hazmat response, and marine and industrial firefighting across Asia, Canada, the Middle East, Russia and the USA. ALERT’s responders built their on-the-ground experience into Avertis, and can build your plans with you.
IAMTech
Working with the process industries since 1973, first as industrial model makers and now as a software company. Its software is used every day on operating sites, including iPermit2.0 for control of work and iPlanSTO for shutdown, turnaround and outage performance. IAMTech builds, hosts and supports Avertis from Middlesbrough, UK.
Show your neighbours the modelling
Model a release on the same aerial map your community recognises and see whether the plume reaches the school or the housing estate down the road, with the weather on the day rather than a worst-case guess.
Early access
Apply for early access
We are opening Avertis to a small group of selected operators first. Each site gets onboarding from IAMTech and ALERT, and its feedback goes straight into version 1.0.
- NowApplications open
- 16 Nov 2026Early access for selected operators
- 31 Mar 2027Version 1.0 goes live
Prefer email? jonswift@iamtech.com
Questions
Before you apply
Do we need to install anything?
No. Avertis is cloud-hosted and runs in a web browser, so there is nothing to install on your site network.
Do we need a modelling specialist?
No. The set-up wizard takes a site from layout to a first-draft plan in about 5–10 minutes. Admin roles let a few super users build and change models while everyone else views the plans, so access, updates and a current model don’t depend on the fire chief who retired last year.
Which standards does it work to?
Foam, fire-water and containment are calculated to NFPA 20 and API RP 2001. Plans are checked against COMAH, NFPA and IP19. Incident command is in line with NIMS (US) and JESIP (UK), with METHANE messaging.
Can ALERT build the plans for us?
Yes. ALERT’s response teams can build and review your plans with you, and the experts on your team can work inside Avertis.
Can we train against the plans?
Yes. The same scenarios run as desktop exercises on your own site data, so crews can test whether they can deliver the plan. What they learn goes back into the plan, so it is better if the scenario ever becomes a real event.
What does early access cost?
Early access is free for selected operators. Pricing after the trial has not been set yet; we will confirm it before you commit to anything.
If you don’t plan, you’re going to fail.
You have the trucks, the foam and the people. Without a current plan, they can’t do their job. Keep every tank’s plan current before the next incident, not after it.