Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

Fire broke out around 9 am in a 2,000-m² building used to store paper bundles and cardboard that belonged to a recycling firm. The site was located in an environmentally-sensitive zone: proximity of a railroad line, a harbour basin connected to the SEINE River and a 55,000-m³ oil depot. The site also happened to lie just 2 km from the Orly Airport runways. To mitigate the risks of spreading, external first responders were massively deployed: 176 fire-fighters dispatched from 13 fire stations, bringing 56 vehicles. The site’s 70 employees were all evacuated and a substantial hydraulic system was installed: 11 fire nozzles, 1 of which was mounted on a ladder. Police officers, the Mayor, the Prefect and local gas and electricity services visited the site. Smoke from the fire did not disturb either air traffic patterns or rail traffic. A floating boom was set up in the harbour basin to protect against the discharge of fire extinction water into the river. A drinking water treatment plant downstream of the site was informed of the accident, but its activity would not be affected. The fire was brought under control around mid-day, but battling this blaze would last until 3 am the following morning. The Prefecture requisitioned a crane with a gripper mechanism (tracked excavator with a hydraulic claw) from a neighbouring department in order to both clear the paper bales (otherwise inaccessible) and finalise extinction of the 1,000 m² that had burned beside the operator’s other heavy machinery. No personnel redundancies had to be announced for the site’s 70 employees, all of whom were reassigned to one of the group’s two other regional sites.

According to the police report, this fire was accidental in nature. A static electrical discharge had occurred when the metal telescopic arm of a construction vehicle made contact with the paper; this phenomenon became amplified due to the dry and biting cold weather during the morning of the accident (ambient temperature: -5 °C).