A fire broke out at around 6:15 p.m. in a gas-fired dryer of a grain silo that had been turned on at around 3:00 p.m. This was the first time the dryer had been started up for the 2013 drying season. Alerted by the visual and audible alarm, the employees turned off the dryer’s power supplies and notified the public firefighters. A 50 m safety cordon was put in place. The firefighters located the seat of the fire inside the stale-air compartment and cooled the zone. After consulting with the firefighters, at around 7:30 p.m. the employees emptied the 50 tonnes of rapeseed from the dryer via its slide gate while a monitor sprayed water over the grain. The fire was brought under control at 8:00 p.m. The firefighters left at around 10:00 p.m. after checking for any remaining hot spots with a thermographic camera and testing the air with an explosimeter.

Expert investigations were conducted. The fire was caused by inadequate cleaning of the dryer after the maize drying season in late 2012. Clogging along the vertical walls of the drying column caused clumps of grain and impurities to overheat and catch fire. The investigations also found that the fault that triggered the alarm had been acknowledged but that the dryer had not been checked. The silo operator has since implemented a number of measures: both dryers are now cleaned by a specialist contractor outside the drying seasons, a new dryer operation procedure has been drawn up, the dryer operators have received updated training, and the operators have been reminded about the procedures for handling alarms. Similar fires had already occurred at the site’s dryers on 16 October 2008, 29 October 2010 (see 39196), and 2 October 2012.