“A new fire brought back, in the sky of Puy-en-Velay, the frightening purple specter which, like a nightmare, remained in everyone's memories. »
On the morning of Sunday, November 8, 1964, Centre-Dimanche recalled the terrible fire which, the evening before, destroyed one of the most important factories in the Ponot basin: the Gibert et Garnier shoe factory. A major disaster which revives the painful memory of the blaze which destroyed the town hall, five months earlier, in the heart of the town centre.
This time, it was in the suburbs, and more precisely on Avenue des Belges, that the fire broke out around 9:55 p.m. When a witness noticed the fire starting, it was already too late : “Inside, flames were dancing and already rising. »
Firefighters helpless before the force of the blaze… and the crowd
By the time firefighters arrived on site, they found themselves confronted with a real blaze. “Even before they put their equipment into operation, the flames had risen above the roof”, which, soon, “with a frightening crash, collapsed in a volcano of sparks”.
It must be said that this building, of recent construction, housed enough to fuel the fire for hours and provide it with choice fuel: glues, synthetic and rubber soles, leather and tanned skins, machines, a 3000 liter tank of fuel oil…
The intervention was also hampered by the fact that a tank sent to the site quickly dried up, forcing emergency services to redeploy and pump water into the Dolaizon. Added to this are the difficulties of access for emergency services: “their horns and sirens alerted a large part of the population. Thus, several thousand people and numerous cars moved towards Boulevard Maréchal-Joffre and Avenue des Belges, seriously hampering the implementation of the fire-fighting system.
“But what could they, the rescuers, do in the face of the rage of the disaster? », asks our journalist present on the scene. Their only mission was to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring buildings: a warehouse to which a large stock of soles had just been delivered and the home of one of the owners. These two sensitive points will indeed be spared.
The candlelight is burning with all its stock of Lyonnais candles
Sad law of the series: on Tuesday November 24, 1964, another industrial building went up in smoke in the Ponot basin. This is the Rutilant candle maker, based in Vals-près-Le-Puy. There, it is when making a maintenance product intended to polish the gold (nuoxide, obtained from gasoline) that an explosion occurs. The fire then spreads to the entire factory which burns completely and “at incredible speed”.
With it, 500,000 lights intended for the illuminations of Lyon for the December 8 celebrations were destroyed.
The fire also injured five people, all burned to varying degrees during the explosion.
Subject to a crisis, a worker wants to throw herself into the flames
It was also necessary to protect the numerous onlookers who came to witness the disastrous spectacle. In the absolutely stunned crowd, “a young factory worker, suffering from a nervous attack, wanted to throw herself into the blaze and it was the deputy Marcel Raffier himself who restrained her”.
It must be said that following the disaster, 160 employees found themselves technically unemployed, while another factory of the same company, based in Yssingeaux, also had to temporarily cease its activity.
“This Yssingeaux workshop begins the manufacture of the shoe which is then finished at Puy”, details our daily newspaper in its edition of Monday November 9, 1964. An interruption of short duration since, ten days later, new machines have already been delivered and allow a partial resumption of activity.
