At 2.54 p.m., during the decontamination of a vehicle, the operator noted that liquid, which did not smell of petrol, was draining from the fuel tank. He turned around and saw his left arm in flames that he managed to extinguish by placing his arm between his legs. The vapours and the vehicle caught fire at the same time. The fire spread to the nearby tools and liquid waste containers, and then to the recently dismounted tyres. The operator raised the alarm and immediately moved the vehicle on fire away from the building with a forklift truck to place it on the decontamination slab in order to facilitate extinction of the fire by the firefighters and to protect the remainder of the establishment from any propagation. Alerted, the employees immediately sprayed the vehicle with a water intake hose while others actuated the extinguishers. The operator called the fire department. the building’s metal door was closed by an employee. All the materials liable to aggravate the situation were moved further away by the employees: running vehicles, air conditioning gas cylinders. Customers were evacuated and access to the site was prohibited. The gendarmes arrived at 3 p.m. and alerted the nearby residents. The employees were moved to safety outside the company’s premises and were counted. Thanks to the various actions by the employees, the fire was circumscribed to the building covering the decontamination slab. The firefighters arrived at around 3.25 p.m. They connected to a fire hydrant and extinguished the fire in 10 min. using 3 fire hoses. A neighbouring building was evacuated and smoke was cleared from it. Two employees were transferred to hospital for burns and inhalation of smoke. Moderate spraying of the area was performed so as to continue to cool what was left of the building. All the extinguishing water was collected by the hydrocarbon separator. At 6.30 p.m., the incident was closed. The desludger and the separator were emptied 3 days after the event.

Two vehicles and a 200m² building burned.

The liquid present in the fuel tank could have been ethanol, a highly flammable substance. The technician was wearing a polar jacket, and static electricity was probably caused by friction and set fire to the vapours from the vehicle undergoing decontamination. Moreover, the decontamination job was not performed by the employee normally in charge of decontamination. The likely presence of ethanol in the vehicle undergoing decontamination had not been envisaged by the substitute employee, given that the vehicle was presumed to contain petrol. According to the gendarmes, no sample could be taken to substantiate this conjecture.

The following measures were taken:

• revision of the internal emergency plan;
• bolstering the existing procedures, notably regarding the wearing of appropriate clothing for the job;
• drafting of new procedures;
• drafting and distribution of a summary internal emergency plan for new employees and trainees arriving at the establishment.