Event
- Event ID
- 1210
- Quality
- Description
A mixture of hydrogen and diesel leaked and ignited on a desulphurisation unit of a refinery. The emergency plan was initiated few minutes later. The unit was shut down and the leak was stopped. Internal firefighters brought the fire under control within 30 minutes.
Black smoke was released into the atmosphere when the fire started, but the H2S detection beacons at the site boundary were not triggered and did not identify any toxicity. The extinguishing water was contained.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- France
- Date
- Component involved
- pipe (generic)
- Failure mode
- rupture & ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 30/09/2025
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- Hydrodesulphurisation process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
unknown
- Process temperature range [C]
- High temperature (100°C to 500°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- medium to high pressure (10 to 50 MPa)
- Location type
- Open
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Post-event summary
No injury, no environmental impact.
Property damages unknown.- Emergency action
The unit was shut down and the leak was stopped.
Internal firefighters brought the fire under control within 30 minutes.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
The safety management of the plant worked as designed. In absence of technical details, it is impossible to extract a return of experience from this event.
- Corrective Measures
A safety inspection performed by the authorities following the fire did not find any shortcomings or improvement needs.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2
diesel - Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- ARIA
- Reference & weblink
Event no.62875 of the French database ARIA
https://www.aria.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/accident/27273/
(accessed December 2024)Prefet de Bouche-Rone, Rapport de l'Inspection des installations classées, Visite d'inspection du 23/07/2024:
https://georisques.gouv.fr/webappReport/ws/installations/inspection/ypL…
(accessed September 2025)
