Slightly before 1.30 a.m., a fire broke out in a 7,900m² building for the automated sorting of household waste. The building contained a receiving bay, a mechanised sorting area and a downstream bay for outgoing waste. The fire started in the downstream bay. At around 3 a.m., the water cannons were activated in the receiving bay even though there was no fire in that area. The water curtains at the level of the fire-resistive wall openings were activated and the isolating valve closed. The facility’s fire alarm and that of the remote monitoring system were triggered. Alerted by a motorist, the firefighters arrived on the site at 3.36 a.m. The guard did not notice their presence straightaway and only opened the facility for them at 3.40 a.m. The fire was already significant by then. The firefighters used a public fire hydrant and then another hydrant several hundred metres away. The guard did not inform them that the site had a 380m³ water reserve, that they used only after the site manager arrived at 4.35 a.m. At 4.08 a.m., the 900m³ tank supplying the water cannons, the water curtains and the sprinkler system was empty. The fire then spread to the sorting line and then the receiving bay. Traffic was suspended on road RD 1508 running along the site and interchange 11 on the A40 motorway was closed for several hours, restricting access to the nearby industrial zone. After several days of spraying and flooding the waste, during which the water from a nearby municipal swimming pool 700m away was used as a back-up, the firefighters declared the end of intervention 5 days after the start of the fire. The operator continued to monitor and sprinkle water for several days in case smoke appeared. During the intervention, the firefighters asked the emergency situation support unit (CASU) for support concerning the risks related to the smoke released by the fire. Atmospheric, surface and water samples were taken. The firefighting water contained in a basin on the site showed significant sulphur contents.

The event destroyed the building, creating material damage estimated at €35m. The fire also meant that for several years the selective collection waste from 11 local bodies, or 40,000 tonnes per year, could not be sorted locally, so it was sent to various sorting centres depending on their remaining available capacity. These environmental consequences, although indirect, were not insignificant.

Operation had been stopped for the past 2 days. The event was apparently due to thermal runaway of a battery in sorting rejects. Several factors contributed to the belated alert and spreading of the fire:

• the failure to detect the fire by the guard who did not detect the presence of smoke either on the screens or during rounds in which they clocked in;
• failing of the remote supervision centre which did not call the guard;
• failure of the automatic extinguishing system which fought fire in the wrong area and emptied the water reserve (activation of the water cannons in a sector where there was no fire was apparently a consequence of the destruction of their electrical control system; the continued stoppage of the water cannons targeting the room in which the fire apparently started seems to be due to their setting in test mode, eliminating any possibility of automatic starting);
• problems of water delivery on the fire hydrants.

For the design of future centres, the operator plans to separate the sorting rejects from the remainder of the sorting line.

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