At around 1:30 p.m., a fire broke out in the shredder of a waste pre-treatment centre causing the alarm to go off. Employees evacuated the site and firefighters were alerted.

The internal emergency services opened the smoke extraction hatches and extinguished the fire before the arrival of the firefighters. The disposer was emptied. Firefighters checked the shredded material for hot spots using a thermal camera. They sprayed down the material as a precaution, before sending it to an incinerator. The water used for the intervention (6 m³) was collected in a basin.

Three pallets of perfume bottles and scented care products were in the process of being crushed, representing 144 kg of ethyl alcohol. The pallets were destroyed in the presence of a bailiff, quickly and without any downtime. Before crushing, a technician checked only one carton per pallet. No aerosols were found during this check. However, the operator presumed that the pallets must have contained aerosols because of the reaction. Perfumers know that aerosol containers cannot be destroyed by crushing. However, multiple types of box sets and bottles are destroyed in each batch. In addition, many intermediaries are involved, which makes communication and feedback difficult.

The operator planned to carry out stricter controls of the content of boxes to be crushed and to again raise the awareness of waste producers of the need to sort aerosols. It also improved the intervention equipment (provision of masks in the crusher area, mobile phone to allow a quick call to the fire brigade) and fire-fighting equipment.