A hundred firefighters are on the bridge. Silos caught fire on the port of La Pallice, rue Montcalm, in La Rochelle. Nearby businesses were evacuated. Here’s what we know.
The day after the deadly fire which claimed the lives of 11 people in Wintzenheim, several local media reported a major fire in the port of La Pallice, in La Rochelle. According to South West, 106 firefighters were dispatched to the scene and companies located within a perimeter of around one hundred meters were evacuated to the surrounding area. However, no homes were evacuated. A risk of explosion is mentioned.
The firefighters were contacted at 8 a.m. this Thursday, August 10, 2023 in the morning for a fire which was declared in one of the four silos belonging to the Sica Atlantique group. The silo in question is called “Bertrand”. The risk of spreading to other silos was therefore not excluded. From now on, four silos would be affected. A “loading belt, located more than 40 meters high, which is used to supply the filling of the silos” and which caught fire would be the cause of this fire, informed France 3 Lieutenant-Colonel François Theves. Referring to “very difficult and very risky conditions” of intervention, due to the height but above all the risk of explosion, François Thèves specified that “toxicity and explosimetry measurements” are regularly taken, noting however that ” on a silo, there is always an explosive risk”.
What do the silos contain?
While the risk of explosion was quickly identified by the competent authorities, the question of what the silos contain arises.