A fire broke out in the fume cooling system (flat tube air-to-air heat exchanger) of the dust collector of a cupola furnace at a plant that manufactures wood heating systems. The maintenance workers alerted the public firefighters at around 11:30 p.m. The dust collector had been off since 7:15 p.m. The firefighters cooled off the structure with 300 m³ of water. After using a thermographic camera to check for remaining hot spots, they left at around 3:00 a.m. The body of the cooling system was destroyed, but the bag filter was intact. The extinguishing water was discharged to the environment.

The accident was caused by dust that built up at the top of the cooling system and was ignited by an incandescent particle. This portion of the facility was not fitted with a dry standpipe or a restriction gauge that indicated when cleaning was necessary.

The damaged body of the cooling system was replaced and fitted with two access doors at its top in order to be able to check for and clean any dust build-up. It cost an estimated €161.000. The trip temperatures of the various safety systems (opening of the fresh-air valves and cupola covers, activation of the cooling fans) were lowered. The operator is also looking into installing automatic carbon dioxide extinguishing system and a system to plug the sewers in order to contain extinguishing water.