Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At around 1:40 a.m. a fire broke out in the 4,500 m² production building of a factory to manufacture detergents. A security guard, sent to the site 2 hours after a loss-of-power alarm had been sent to the company’s remote monitoring company, raised the alarm. A large plume of odorous fumes was released and resulted in discomfort among the employees at a nearby postal sorting centre.

The emergency services established a security perimeter and were able to contain the fire with 6 hoses at around 8:30 a.m. The facility operator triggered the inflatable bladder present in the road stormwater network in a move to recover the extinguishing water. Due to the undersized design of the site retention basin, it was impossible to avoid an overflow. A pumping company was able to recover and treat the water stored in the retention basin to limit leakage into the surrounding environment. An earthworks company cleared the area and created a trench to allow firefighters to treat the residual fires. The disaster is extinguished the next day at the end of the day. On-site monitoring was maintained in the days that followed.

The fire destroyed the buildings housing the packaging lines, formulation and raw material storage facilities. The 47 employees were laid off (technical unemployment), although some of the offices were spared. Sensitive files (company formulas) were recovered.

In particular, the site stores raw materials that are highly toxic and toxic to the aquatic environment. The accident had an impact on the aquatic environment in two ways:

  • the 15 m³ double-walled HDPE tank, located outside the buildings, melted under the effect of heat,
  • the inflatable bladder in the rainwater network was triggered too late and was thus unable to prevent the release of acid from the tank into the rainwater sump.

Basic extinguishing waters (pH 14) overflowed and contaminated 2,000 m² of nearby industrial wasteland (with partial destruction of vegetation) and 1,500 m² of non-sealed land within the facility. Analyses of the extinguishing water taken from the retention basin revealed a significant load of COD, chlorides and sulphates. Clean-up operations were conducted on the affected lands to avoid the contamination of groundwater and soil.

The analyses carried out following the fire showed that the smoke emitted was not toxic in terms of the parameters studied (hydrochloric acid, hydrocyanic acid and VOC).

The Inspection authorities for classified facilities proposed:

  • permanent monitoring of the site,
  • establishment of pre-/post-fire inventory status,
  • the disposal of waste from the fire,
  • draining of the stormwater network,
  • weekly monitoring of groundwater quality.

Owing to the significant amount of property damage, the operator began demolition operations, and a police investigation was conducted to determine the origin of the incident. According to the facility operator, an electrical malfunction in the warehouse, where raw materials and finished products are stored, was the cause of the fire. However, all electrical installations were up to date in relation to their regulatory inspections. The site had not been equipped with a smoke detection or automatic extinguishing system.