“The measurements carried out revealed no asbestos contamination, either inside the establishment or outside” of the Villedômer silo, destroyed by fire at the end of October.
In a press release released Tuesday, November 19, 2024, the Indre-et-Loire Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis 37) announces that “the results of the samples taken from all 99 fire brigade outfits turned out to be negative”.
No “precautionary principle”
This official release defuses a situation that has become explosive in the ranks of the Touraine firefighters. Between October 22 and 24, around a hundred of them were exposed to asbestos during the fire in a sunflower dryer in Villedômer, northeast of Tours.
A higher than normal level of asbestos fibers was notably detected in the roof of the agricultural building.
A few days later, voices were raised to denounce a “dysfunction” during operations carried out on the fire. “No decontamination airlock was put in place: the precautionary principle was not applied, the situation was minimized »regretted firefighters, questioned by The New Republic.
Outfits cleaned in-house
The operator came forward on the morning of October 23 to warn of the presence of asbestos in the roof. An alert relayed by the chemical risks technician to the chain of command, which would not have been taken into account.
“Outfits will be cleaned internally if the result is negative”then predicted the management of Sdis, in an email.
