An oil leak ignited around 4:20 am in the vicinity of the subsurface pumps of a refinery’s distillation column. In-house first responders, backed up by professional fire-fighters, extinguished the blaze by 4:50 using 2 foam nozzles spraying 6,000 and 8,000 l/min, respectively. Nonetheless, they continued spreading foam to avoid any renewed ignition. The fire crew patched the leak and proceeded to drain and degas the column. The internal emergency plan was activated at 5 am before being lifted 35 min later. An ice block, caused by extremely cold weather during this first half of February, positioned near a steam leak fell onto a quarter-turn shut-off valve of a vent nozzle on an unplugged column placed at the lower level. The ensuing diesel flow, which ignited at 280°C on the pavement, triggered ignition of the leak. This valve was not compliant with the standard dedicated to such applications.