Fire broke out at night in a sorting and compaction hangar for ordinary industrial wastes at a centre that shipped, sorted and reused such wastes. The site watchman notified external emergency personnel as well as the facility operator. Fire-fighters were on-site in less than 30 min. Extension of this fire was limited to wastes present in the hangar pit. The private fire hydrants located near the hangar could not deliver sufficient quantities of water, so fire-fighters were forced to connect to a public hydrant located several hundred metres from the hangar. Additional response resources were mobilised. The disposal of wastes from the pit using the operator’s handling devices made it possible to circumscribe the accident. These wastes were then strewn and sprinkled on the adjacent unloading platform. The emergency response ended 7.5 hours after activating the alarm. A portion of the 200 tonnes of waste involved was destroyed, while the sorting and transfer activity, which only took up part of the site, was suspended for 3 days. No other activity was affected. The fire extinction water, recovered in the impermeable waste transfer pit, had to be discharged into specialised installations. The operator was asked to submit an accident report, in exposing the inadequate design of the site’s fire hydrants.