Fire broke out around 2:30 am in the 1,500sq.m disassembly workshop of a company dedicated to recycling plastics contained in discarded electronic products. Despite water supply constraints, fire-fighters controlled the blaze in 2 hours using 7 variable speed nozzles. According to both the investigator and judicial expert, the battery charger of a pallet truck was at fault; this device was found at the centre of the hottest spot encountered. Purchased new a year prior, the pallet truck was placed in charge mode, as was normal protocol, on Friday before employees left the facility. The fire was discovered late. No infraction was cited; nonetheless, the window adjacent to the hottest spot exploded, perhaps as a result of the fire’s heat. A judicial investigation was performed.

All offices within the workshop where ignition occurred had burned. The blaze spread to equipment being disassembled, as well as to heating gas pipelines and then to the warehouse. It ultimately extended within the workshop, engulfing 1,500 to 1,700sq.m. The smoke and heavy soot build-up was widely distributed throughout the building, encompassing 3,000sq.m. Fire water remained inside the building. Property damage was limited to the company’s effects. The half-destroyed building was scheduled for reconstruction. Employee redundancies were planned.

Fire-fighters maintained a monitoring unit onsite throughout the day. Emergency and safety measures were adopted; analyses of chloride concentrations in the soot indicated a rate of 16 micrograms/ sq.cm at the level of the suction systems and 8 micrograms/sq.cm around the crushers. A canine safety team was dispatched to the site for monitoring; gas and electricity were neutralised the next day. Disassembly workstations were temporarily housed in another building. New conditions for charging electrical devices were examined in order to distance operations from the production buildings.