Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At around 4 am in an insulating (polystyrene and plaster) board manufacturing plant, an employee was cutting a block of expanded polystyrene (ESP) with a hot wire when the wire broke, starting a fire on the neighbouring boards. The 2 people present on site did not succeed in containing the fire and alerted the fire services. The fire spread quickly from the section of the plant affected to the ESP block storage area via the block conveyor and to the production area (pre-expansion and moulding). The firefighters set up a safety perimeter. The 9,000 m² of the establishment were devastated with the exception of the raw material storage hall, the silos of pre-expanded balls (highly flammable) and the finished product storage hall. From the 660 m³ fire extinguishing water used, only 8.5 m³ were recovered in the retention area represented by the scrubber-oil separator: the rest mostly flowed into the VILAINE river because no containment had been organised on the site even though imposed in the provisions of the Prefectural order. The inspection authorities for classified facilities noted the absence of inflatable tanks on the sewer manholes, opening of the existing shutoff valves on the rainwater outlets and no valve on the scrubber-oil separator. Putting the installation back in operation was dependent on the submission of a new operating permit application. The 47 employees found themselves on technical unemployment.