A fire broke out around 9:30 a.m. in an aerospace plant, under a magnesium furnace on the electrical supply cables. The personnel were evacuated from the premises, and a safety perimeter was established for 3 hours. Firefighters were able to rapidly bring the fire under control with 4 powder extinguishers. The intervention ended at 11:45 p.m. The accident assessment was 1 slightly injured.

The cause of the accident was most likely a grinder used during a maintenance operation near the furnace, despite the establishment of a fire permit and protection installed by the maintenance department. The spark would have ignited magnesium particles that had accumulated under the furnace. The furnace configuration made it difficult to clean particles that had accumulated underneath. The fire would then have spread to the electrical cables near the oven.

The operator replaced the oven’s cables and seals, cleaned the oven’s channels and installed sealing plates on the channels underneath the oven to prevent magnesium particles from accumulating.