A fire broke out in an oven for drying fireworks stars at the time a technician remotely opened the oven doors to cool the contents. The 30 kg of composition made from barium chlorate, accroides gum, fine coal and sulphur were consumed by the fire, accompanied by projections of ignited stars. The oven was completely destroyed.

This incident was the second in two months (see ARIA 37058) following a process modification that called for the reintroduction of manufacturing rejects into the normal cycle. Further testing on the composition revealed that this step of reintegrating manufacturing rejects into the normal cycle served to drop the spontaneous ignition point of the composition to 75°C, which was a temperature potentially reached during oven heating phase. Rejects would no longer be added back into the production cycle, but instead directly destroyed. Also, an additional safety device would be installed on the oven heating unit.