A fire broke out in an adhesives factory at around 1:50 p.m. The lagging wrapped around the boiler room’s thermal fluid lines had caught fire. A site employee had seen smoke coming from the opening of the pit, and the internal contingency plan was initiated. The upstream and downstream valves of the thermal fluid system were closed. Three members of the site’s designated firefighting personnel were able to put out the fire with a 50 kg powder type fire extinguisher. A safety perimeter of 20 m was established around the area. The operator also removed a few concrete hatches to facilitate access and provide better visibility of where the fire had originated. The emergency rescue services did not need to spray down the site with water. They identified the piping in the gutter and removed the lagging. A program was set up to monitor the site over the weekend. The waste generated by the fire (30 m³ of burnt insulation) was stored in a skip in an appropriate area until it could be assessed.

A water leak 2 months earlier, caused by a malfunctioning safety valve on the expansion tank of the site’s water supply system and which had gone undetected for some time, had filled up the underground pit surrounding the total drain tank associated with the boiler (maintained empty). This empty tank had risen up out of the ground and become deformed. The water, contaminated by hydrocarbon residues in the bottom of the pit, had soaked into the lagging. The oil residues in the heat lagging would have degraded and then self-ignited due to the temperature of the fluid (200ؘ °C).

Insulation with an aluminium protective shell was used instead of heat lagging material. The pipes were cleaned and inspected, and the flanges were checked for leaks. A level monitoring system was installed in both retention pits.