Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At a research centre, a utility van type vehicle assigned to the maintenance unit was circulating on a track and idled. The driver attempted to restart the engine and noticed flames exiting from under the hood. He immediately left the vehicle and sounded the alarm (internal code 18). The internal emergency plan was activated at 10:25 am. The onsite fire-fighting crew quickly arrived at the scene; a 30-m safety perimeter was set up and the fire was extinguished within 20 minutes. The external fire-fighters showed up 10 minutes after the alarm had sounded and left 10 minutes later, considering the situation to be well under control. A number of absorbent booms were installed below the zone of intervention in order to capture the extinction water. The incident exerted no impact on either the site’s activity or the environment. The most likely source was the bursting of one of the vehicle’s hoses that in turn caused the engine to stop and gasoline to splatter on the hot engine when attempting to restart the van. Subsequent to this incident, the 3 other vehicles in the fleet of the same type were inspected and all their gasoline hoses were replaced. These vans had been undergoing annual inspections and were found to comply with current regulations. Nonetheless, as part of an effort to reduce the site’s volatile organic compound emissions, it had been planned to gradually acquire electric vehicles to replace the current fleet. This operation was scheduled to begin in 2011.