Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

In a plastic items manufacturing plant, a fire broke out in the workshop containing the presses. Due to a reduction in workload at the beginning of February, it had been decided to work in 2 x 8 shifts during the week of 30/01 to 3/02. Within the context of this organisation, the presses had been shut down following a well-defined procedure (cutoff of the heaters and drainage of the polypropylene sleeves). Only the mould heaters and desiccators remained heated. When starting his shift at around 4.45 am, the morning shift team leader noticed thick smoke in the workshop when opening the door, preventing him from reaching the lighting cabinet. He noticed flames in the middle of this cabinet and immediately called the fire brigade and the workshop manager. Firefighters arrived 20 minutes later and contained the fire within half an hour; when the workshop manager arrived, the fire had been extinguished.

The fire had started in the electrical cabinet of one of the presses causing its complete destruction and that of the peripheral equipment as well as the partial destruction of a neighbouring press. A large amount of material at the base of the press was burned, producing an ash deposit over the entire surface area of the company, including in the offices and outbuildings. Due to the low spread of fire, the firefighters only used very little water, causing no drainage into the workshop’s gutters and therefore no releases into the environment.