At around 7:45 p.m., in a household and infectious clinical waste (ICW) sorting and incineration centre, employees observed an outbreak of fire on the bulky waste materials shredder. Efforts were made to fight the fire with water cannons. Flaming waste had fallen into the 1,500 m³ incineration pit, causing the fire to spread and the release of a significant plume of smoke. The plant was shut down, and employees in the incineration area were evacuated. The fire brigade was able to contain the fire at about 10 p.m. using water hoses and foam cannons. The smoke was able to be extracted by manually opening the outlets in the upper part of the structure. As the grapples used for loading the waste were out of order due to the fire (cables melted), the emergency services were unable to use them to spread out the material and facilitate the fire extinguishing operation. The fire resumed as soon as a fire hose had been shut off. The facility operator had a power shovel sent to the site at around 6 a.m. the next day to disperse the fuel. The fire was extinguished at around 7 p.m.

Consequences and actions taken

The flames burnt roughly 10 to 30 tons of household waste. The infectious clinical waste was not impacted because it is loaded directly into the furnace without passing through the pit.

The extinguishing water was channeled to the retention basin. Deterioration of the concrete in the pit was observed, and samples were taken from the groundwater downstream of the pit via existing piezometers to check for any environmental impact.

The 2 skydomes located directly above the area affected by the fire had melted. The electrical cables were damaged, and the travelling cranes and grapples were no longer serviceable. The refurbishment operations took several weeks to complete. The building’s roof was assessed, but it was reported that the sorting centre was not affected. While the refurbishing work was being carried out, the household waste was routed to various storage facilities in the region and the ICW was taken to specialised treatment centres. The waste that had caught fire in the pit was incinerated in the furnaces on site when the installations were restarted. As the incinerator was no longer able to fulfil its role as an urban heating supplier, thermal power plants took over the load. A prefectoral emergency order was initiated to establish the conditions required to restart of the installations (verification of the installations and equipment, the building’s structure, fire detection and protection, reactivation of the smoke extraction hatches, repair of the pit, etc.). The incineration of household waste and ICW resumed 20 days after the accident.

Causal analysis and feedback

According to the operator, fire is used to process bulky waste materials (presence of hot products, such as barbecue ashes may have been present, or there may have been an outbreak of fire caused by a spark created during the shredding operation).

A fire in the household waste storage pit, which was not as extensive, had occurred at the site the year before (ARIA 46695) at the same level. The presumed origin of the fire was also attributable to bulky items (smouldering fire).

Following this event, the operator:

• increased the watering down of waste at the shredder’s outlet;
• sent a letter to the suppliers of bulky waste to raise their awareness as to the importance of complying with the specifications with regard to authorised waste;
• reinforced the visual inspections conducted by the overhead crane technician and dockside agent when bulky goods are received. In case of doubt, samples are to be taken on incoming elements with the waste spread out and checked for hot spots with a portable thermal detector.

In addition, the operator conducted feasibility studies on:

• the installation of an automatic detection and extinguishing system at the bulk waste material shredder;
• the installation of a more efficient fire detection system than the detection of flames in the pit;
• the isolation of the bulk waste shredding part from the pit;
• the reinforcement of the pit’s watering system;
• the installation of a system that automatically activates the smoke extraction hatches;
• alternative solutions that would allow for rapid intervention on the waste should the grapple become unavailable.