At 2:50 am, fire broke out under a large tent with metal siding and a covering in sheet metal used to store 250 tonnes of dead automobile batteries (lithium, nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal) on an impermeable area within a plant dedicated to collecting and recycling electric accumulators. Fire-fighters extinguished the blaze around 5 am using 3 hoses (2 of which were foam hoses; in all, 2 m³ of emulsifier were sprayed). Half of the 450-m² storage structure was destroyed; 75 tonnes of batteries, including 8 tonnes of nickel-cadmium accumulators, burned. Some of the extinguishing water flowed into the Bivet Canal and on to the BOURBE River; the presence of extinction foam was observed over a 2-km stretch of the canal. A sanitation company pumped the extinguishing water collected in the in-house drainage network. A subcontractor removed the batteries with a backhoe loader under the protection of the fire-fighters’ foam hose; this debris was stored in plastic containers after verifying the absence of hot spots with a thermal camera. Municipal first responders left the scene by noon on 29 November. The Prefecture issued a press release on the day of the accident.

A short-circuit between disassembled industrial nickel battery parts caused this sinister. A Prefectural order suspended all storage zone operations. The site operator was asked to determine the environmental impact of this fire and revise the safety report on the firm’s activities, with an emphasis on examining: potential reductions in stored volumes, the risk of explosion with projectile effects due to the presence of lithium, the lack of attention paid to lightning phenomena, inclusion of a scenario relative to toxic gas emissions, organisational measures aimed at lowering the probability of fire, and the efficiency and number of fire detection sensors.