Inside a refinery, fire broke out around 9 am at the aromatics loading platforms for lorries. After connecting the ground outlet onto the toluene loading station, a driver was preparing to climb on the footbridge to introduce the loading arm into his lorry cistern when he noticed a fire outbreak on the neighbouring benzene loading station. He moved his lorry away from the loading zone while the local control room technician sounded the alarm. The driver activated the emergency shutdown procedure and the water curtain. The site’s fire crew arrived 3 to 4 min later and extinguished the fire by applying foam. The fire spread onto the strut supporting the loading station over less than 2 m. Damage was limited to the coating of a few cables, the heat-insulated portion of the loading arm and the arm itself, which was not in service at the time. The most recent benzene loading operation had taken place at the beginning of the previous afternoon. The only anomaly observed at the time of this incident was the non-closure of the foot valve on the loading arm. Beyond its service periods, this arm was held in equilibrium without straps. One hypothesis forwarded was that at the moment of product arrival, the combined effect of weight and pressure caused the arm to fall hitting an electrical installation. Electrostatic charges would have provided the ignition source, given that benzene is an easily flammable liquid sensitive to static electricity. Another hypothesis pointed to an eventual correlation between the hook-ups performed by the driver in preparing loading of the lorry and the fire ignition.