On a Sunday at around 10.25 a.m., a fire broke out in the caviar storage and processing warehouse of a fish farm. An alarm sounded on the building’s electricity mains. The firefighters were alerted and, on arriving, established a 200m safety perimeter and switched off the power. A fire hydrant was available 900m from the site. The firefighters faced water supply problems in the river reach alongside the site. The surface water was contained by the firefighters, notably by deploying cofferdams. Two employees were temporarily laid off. Six people were deprived of electricity for 6 hours. The loss due to the caviar stored in the building destroyed by the fire was estimated at between €0.5m and €1m.

After the incident, it was observed that miscellaneous equipment was stored in a building with a wooden structure and without a firebreak wall, alongside the processing laboratory. The outbreak of fire could have been due to:

• heating of the engine of a motorcycle stored in the building, even though the personnel were not authorised to be present on the site on Sunday;
• a fault on one of the batteries during charging in the building.

500l of diesel fuel and 40l of petrol were also present in storage.

Following the fire, the operator took the following actions:

• reconstruction of the building, revamping its structure and its fire resistance;
• moving the storage unit and the technical workshop away from the processing facility;
• locating a pumping station for the firefighters at the level of the nearby river reach;
• prohibiting any private use of the equipment rooms;
• providing for storage of the caviar in cases in the event of an emergency evacuation;
• re-examining the ergonomics of the common rooms for employees;
• doing fire drills more frequently.