Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At about 3:30 p.m., a fire broke out on the air vent filter of a 70-ton casting sand silo in a steel foundry. The emergency services evacuated 20 employees from a nearby workshop. This filter is designed to remove dust from the pressurised air used to fill the silo with sand from the shake-out installation, before release into the atmosphere. Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire with a fire hose, then emptied the contents of the container to ensure that there were no remaining hot spots. The emergency response lasted until 7:30 p.m. Roughly twenty or so textile sleeves (L = 1.2 m) were destroyed.

According to the operator, the excessively high temperature of the ensiled sand, despite the temperature probes, may have been the cause of the outbreak. Other similar filters have been used in the factory for several years without incident. The operator is studying the possibility of implementing a new filtration model.