Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At around 8 p.m., a fire broke out in a 720 m² building of waste recycling facility. The site was closed at the time, and the security guard was temporarily absent. The fire melted a cable supplying power to the gate, preventing it from opening. The guard had to open the gate manually to enter the site with the fire brigade, which had been alerted by a third party. A significant plume of smoke was released. The firefighters were able to connect to the fire hydrants in the lower part of the site, while machine operators were called as reinforcement to assist the firefighters. The fire was brought under control at around 10:15 p.m. Rounds were set up to monitor the site overnight.

The roof of the building that had caught fire was damaged as well as many electrical cables, making sorting and packaging operations temporarily impossible. The sprinkler heads above the press had been activated and protected which protected the machinery. The other buildings were not affected. The extinguishing water (700 m³) was collected in the 1,430 m³ underground containment basin. The 200 t of waste affected by the fire (paper, cardboard, plastic, etc.) were taken to off-site treatment centres.

The origin of the fire remains unidentified. No activities (equipment use) or hot-spot work had been conducted in the building during the week prior to the fire. The baling press, located in the building, had not been in operation at the time and the power had been switched off for 3 months.

A malicious act is suspected. At around 7:25 p.m., the security guard had seen intruders inside the site’s fenced property. The four individuals had jumped back over the fence and fled in a vehicle. The fire broke out in two separate areas while the guard was absent: one fire in the stock of pallets loaded with honeycomb polypropylene plastic panels and the other in the paper bales.

Following the incident, the operator decided to conduct exercises with the fire brigade and to provide them with a plan of the networks and the position of the various fire-fighting/safety equipment on site to facilitate their intervention in the event of an accident.