Fire hazards on campus: points of vigilance

Over the past three months, two fires broke out at Institut Pasteur laboratories.

One was caused by devices left to charge over the weekend and stacked on top of each other, which caused the batteries to overheat. The other was caused by a Bunsen burner that was left on unattended.

 

•    Reminder:

-    Any laboratory work using a heat source (a Bunsen burner, hot plate, etc.) must be supervised.

-    Devices left to charge must be unplugged once they have finished charging. This is especially important if they are left unattended or plugged in just before a night or weekend.

 

•    Training in fire hazards:

Fire hazards represent a major risk on campus.

To reduce the risk, a new e-learning module on fire safety has been developed. It is available to everyone via your training portal.

The Security Department would also encourage you to sign up for the two training courses taught on campus:

-    "Using extinguishers" to learn how to deal with fire outbreaks

-    "Fire wardens"

Electrical fires are the most common type of fire outbreaks. They are often caused by faulty devices, an electrical fault or the use of power strips.

 

 
•    Areas that require additional attention:

The Security Department would also draw your attention to a practice that is becoming increasingly widespread on campus: charging e-scooters and e-bikes in offices or corridors, and charging electric vehicles at sockets that are not intended for this usage.

These vehicles operate with lithium-ion batteries, which when damaged can explode or lead to particularly dangerous fires.

The only way of extinguishing a lithium-ion battery fire is to place the entire battery in water, and this makes it particularly hard for firefighters to deal with this type of incident.

So we would ask all of you never to leave a lithium-ion battery charging unattended.

Please note that at the Institut Pasteur there are external charging points for electric bikes and scooters to reduce the fire risk. There are also dedicated parking spaces for electric vehicles with safety systems in the event of an incident. It is therefore strictly prohibited to use sockets that are not intended for charging this type of battery.

The Security Department is counting on your cooperation to help reduce this risk on campus.

Fire prevention depends on all of us.

If you have any questions, please email surete@pasteur.fr.