Fire broke out in the resin workshop of a floor covering factory. The workshop was idle and its raw materials storage tanks were empty. The installations were being secured and maintenance was underway in preparation of the facility’s summer holiday period, scheduled to begin the next day. As part of these works, around 9 am, 2 employees outside the workshop were monitoring progress draining the methanol purge in the airlock chamber. Upon their return, in the airlock between a reactor and the control booth, they detected a fire outbreak spreading to the building roof. Wearing self-breathing apparatuses, they fought the fire with 2 powder extinguishers before deploying a fire hose cabinet. During this time, they asked the site watchman to trigger the factory’s internal emergency plan and notify the internal safety unit, which in turn contacted both the factory’s fire chief and the workshop manager.

The site’s utility lines were cut and valves closed in order to isolate the sewer system, whose outfall discharged into the DORDOGNE River. The workshop manager alerted the local fire department and visited the site at 9:05 am; using 2 powder extinguishers, he then quickly extinguished the blaze, which was following a course along the ground floor gutters. Reaching the workshop at 9:10, internal fire-fighters installed 2 hoses to protect the phenol storage tanks downwind and prevent the fire from spreading to the roof. Arriving on-site at 9:23 am, external first responders installed 2 more hoses to protect the other storage tanks: formaldehyde, potash, methyl melamine, methanol. The 250 employees were confined far from the workshop and traffic on the adjacent road was suspended. Fire-fighters removed material under the roofline to slow the spread of fire. The blaze was brought under control in an hour and completely extinguished by 12:30 pm, with the internal emergency plan lifted at 11:20. Two fire-fighters sustained slight injuries (a hurt hand and smoke inhalation) during the intervention.

Property damage was substantial: the roof partially burned and collapsed on 2 sides above the destroyed workshop’s control booth: supervisory equipment (automated controller), electric cables, unusable meters. The extinction water polluted 15 tonnes of crystallised melamine. Excluding roof repair costs, the operator evaluated damages at €150,000; 75 m³ of extinction water were channelled to a 250-m³ storage basin; they were subsequently analysed to determine an appropriate disposal protocol if the pollution is demonstrated or whether it must be discharges into the DORDOGNE River. Given the small quantity of methanol involved (< 20 litres), the operator rejected any risk of toxic emanations or health impacts.

To secure the zone, the roof was demolished and a protective tarp installed. An action plan was drawn up for normal activity resumption after the summer holiday period, as scheduled before the accident:

• 22nd Aug – Acceptance of raw materials (phenol and formaldehyde) and safety equipment testing;
• 23rd Aug – Initiation of resin production provided conclusive test results;
• 27th Aug – Resumption of laminate production.

According to the operator, an electrical short-circuit near the purge valve positioned in the airlock chamber caused this accident. Several measures were considered:

• installation of a methanol purge piping bypass to place the purge valve outside the airlock;
• outside placement as well of electrical cables;
• use of ATEX-certified (for explosive atmospheres) electrical equipment to replace the existing devices;
• update of the internal emergency plan (alarm relayed to dedicated personnel phone lines, audible siren throughout the site, addition of a “Head of Internal Relations” response sheet, improved internal communications in crisis situations – this last item proving difficult to implement during this fire).

The inspection authorities for classified facilities noted that such an accident scenario had not been listed in the site’s safety report. The operator was required to revise this report by conducting a detailed study of risks related to this specific scenario, notably the consequences of such a fire regardless of the site’s level of output (particularly in production mode), along with potential domino effects on neighbouring installations: tanks, reactors, etc. With no protocol in place for workshop shutdown, the operator was asked to define operating steps to ensure a closure of all workshop installations under optimal safety conditions. A similar procedure also had to be established for the restart of installations. Lastly, the operator was asked to assess the possibility of equipping the workshop with fire detectors and a set of phenol / formaldehyde / methanol detectors.