Near the end of the day, a fire broke out on a capacitor bank in the machine room of a seafood processing plant. The fluid leakage detection system, equipped with telephone reporting, was triggered at 11:44 p.m., but the maintenance manager, who was not on call at the time, did not see the alarm. Upon his arrival on site the following morning, he went to his office to check the temperature curves but could not turn on his computer. These curves, which were checked later, showed that cooling had stopped after 11:44 p.m. Noting several anomalies, he went to the engine room and noticed water exiting the room. When he opened the door, he was splashed with water as an air hose had become disconnected and was blowing on the water. He then switched off the two air compressors, shut off the water and returned to the engine room. At this point, he noticed a fire and called the fire brigade. When they arrived at around 9:10 a.m., they noted that a plastic water pipe had burst due to the heat, resulting in the release of 70 m³ of water, which extinguished the fire.

As there was no retention structure, this water was able to flow into the natural environment. The electricity was disconnected from the high voltage substation. One of the three refrigeration units in the room had been exposed to heat radiation and released 265 kg of refrigerant. Although it was only slightly affected, the second unit was emptied of its refrigerant as a precaution. A nitrogen leak test was performed. The refrigeration engineer conducted a standard leak test on the third system, which showed no anomalies.

The site’s activity was shut down for several weeks until the electrical and cooling installations could be completely repaired. Twenty-four-hour security was set up starting Monday, May 20th. Due to the accident, twenty-five employees were out of work (technical lay-off). Part of the raw material stocks and semi-finished and finished products were evacuated to a storage facility with appropriate temperature control, but 13.2 t of raw materials and 1.2 t of finished products, which were not in compliance, had to be disposed of through approved channels.

The operator implemented the following measures following this incident:

• study and implementation of a system designed to contain discharge water;
• a safety and environmental audit of the site by a specialised organisation;
• introduction of a 24/7 on-call monitoring and intervention service on the refrigeration system and the pressure equipment, as well as for monitoring and intervention in the engine room in the event of a fire;
• review of procedures for transmitting rules with insurers;
• isolation of the capacitor bank in an external building far from the production site and the machine room;
• complete renovation and backfitting of the engine room, including the installation of a fire detection system;
• inclusion of the capacitor bank in the preventive maintenance schedule (annual maintenance);
• installation of an autonomous detection system in the capacitor bank and electrical cabinets.