At 14:10, in a nail polish factory, a fire broke out in a 500-liter stainless steel tank containing 50 kg of alcohol and 140 kg of ethyl acetate. An operator is filling the tank with ethyl acetate using a metering gun. He sees a spark at the gun and the appearance of a flame. It protects the face but is burned in the 2nd degree with one hand and 1st degree on the forehead. One of his colleagues extinguishes the fire with powder fire extinguishers. The crisis cell is triggered and personnel from areas adjacent to the fire are evacuated.

The manufacturing room is ventilated overnight to eliminate alcohol and acetate flue gases and to eliminate any risk associated with fumes for operators. Property damage is estimated at € 15,000. The contents of the manufacturing tank, the ethyl acetate drums and the current fabrications present at the time of the incident are treated as hazardous waste.

An energy supply in the form of static electricity caused the ignition of the alcohol and acetate vapors. Operators report that they had already seen sparks on the guns in this area, but had not shared the information. The lack of grounding of the manufacturing vessel and acetate drums could be the cause of the accident. Only the distribution pump had been grounded. In addition, the compressed air supply pipe of the pump was made of electrostatic material. The operator was not wearing anti-static clothing or EPI chemical hazard. There was no preventive maintenance of earthing systems to ensure their effectiveness over time.

The operator has an audit of its safety equipment carried out by experts in ATEX: control of all earthing circuits, expertise of dosing guns to check for the existence of a fault. It sets up an action plan including:

• procedural and training improvements: writing of a grounding procedure for equipment (tank, pump, drums) including a control methodology, technical training of manufacturing operators targeted at securing the workstation
• equipment improvements to limit the risk of static electricity: replacement of the pump pipe with a heat sink pipe, provision of anti-static PPE (shoes and dissipative gloves, cotton clothing …)
• improvements in the means of protection of the operators: search for PPE compatible chemical risk and fire risk.

The operator also decides to:

• maintain at any time a hygrometry of 50% in the workshop to control the risk related to static electricity;
• create a new weigh box with suction to limit the ATEX zone;
• replace a grinder with ATEX material;
• to improve the cleaning processes of the manufacturing tanks.