Inside a facility for transforming hazardous industrial waste into cement works fuel, fire alarms sounded at 3:30 am on the weekend. On-duty personnel activated the internal emergency plan and notified first responders. The blaze burned through 13 of the 25 cells measuring 400 m³ in the intermediate storage zone (fouled packaging pre-crushed prior to mixing) of an 8,000-m² metal building and continued to spread, in threatening a nearby forest. Fire-fighters responded with 60 men, 5 vehicles and 1 ladder in establishing an attack plan of 7 water hoses fed by the site’s 2,500-m³ extinction water basin. Their response was complicated by the risk this building would collapse and by the thick smoke being released. Fire-fighters wore self-breathing apparatuses, but 3 of them were intoxicated and had to be evacuated to safety. The fire was contained at 10:30 am, though ultimate extinction took much longer. At 11 am, authorities decided to confine 80 children at a nearby school (2.5 km away) while awaiting the toxicity measurements taken by a chemical emergency squad in adjoining towns: the confinement order was lifted at 4 pm, when results were announced negative. Due to a plastic smell released by the smoke, neighbours phoned their town halls requesting information. To facilitate smoke removal, a fan was delivered that evening and a lifting device used to puncture the roof with a chainsaw the next day.

Over the subsequent days, company employees removed smouldering waste in the cells after sprinkling by bulldozers. Once sprinkled, the waste was discharged by the facility operator’s semitrailers to a certified centre. Additional pumping was set up at an adjacent pond and tanker lorries had to be requisitioned to regularly replenish the extinction water basin. A portion of this water remained trapped at the site’s retention basin before being pumped, while another portion escaped from the basin and polluted over a 2-km stretch a nearby brook where an earthen dam had been installed. Pumping of the pond had to be suspended 2 days thereafter to preserve local flora and fauna. Analyses of samples extracted from the soil, air and water within a 2-km radius showed results below the toxicity thresholds (the pollutants tested were mainly: HCl, HCN, VOC, PAH, aldehydes, metals, phthalates, and dioxins-furans). The fire was fully controlled 12 days later. Half of the building was destroyed and 3,000 tonnes of waste burned. The operator issued a press release on the day of the outbreak.

Fire sources with this type of activity are common occurrences. This same site had experienced a less severe blaze slightly more than 2 years prior (ARIA 38192).