Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

Around 6:20 am, fire broke out in a 650-m² building housing the vacuum distillation shop of a plant producing essential oils. The standard cleaning procedure proved to be insufficient for removing stubborn resin residue, so a well-experienced technician cleaned a 6-litre glass drum with 2 litres of cold hexane and a heat scraper, which was normally exclusively used in an adjacent workshop. The solvent vapours ignited, seriously burning the technician to the 2nd degree over 20% of his body (wearing protective gloves, shoes and glasses did however protect his hands, feet and eyes), while initiating the fire in a workshop where other distillations were being processed.

The internal emergency services intervened; the technician was showered, fire-fighters notified, energy sources (gas and electricity) cut, smoke removal hatches manually opened, and the water curtain surrounding the storage platform for neighbouring drums was turned on.

Gendarme officers set up a safety perimeter and blocked traffic. About 20 employees were evacuated. By connecting to the outside fire hydrant for their mission, responders caused water flow on the internal network to abruptly drop, negating the effect of the water curtain and making it impossible to connect a 2nd nozzle. The emergency crew protected a nitrogen tank, prevented fire from spreading throughout the facility using water nozzles, then extinguished the blaze with foam nozzles. They swept the premises clean and left around 11:30 am.

The 50-m² workshop and its 4 distillation columns were destroyed; cable paths and the utility room juxtaposing the workshop burned. Property damage was valued at €400,000, without counting the loss of raw materials and finished products stored in the workshop.

The extinction water was recovered in the 1,000-m³ confinement basin designed for this purpose. Already filled extensively by the heavy rainfall over the past few days, this basin proved sufficient to hold all the extinction water; no pollution outside the site was observed.

The operator completed the set of workshop guidelines by formally prohibiting use of either a heat cannon or heat scraper during the cleaning phases, with all problems requiring the department manager’s review and decision. In coordination with local fire services, the operator sought solutions in order to remedy the abrupt drop in flow rate on the internal water network.