The last firefighters only left the 5-hectare Cerexagri site, in Bassens, at 12:30 p.m. this Thursday, January 2. They had arrived on site shortly after 8 p.m. the day before, and after the guard on duty alerted them: a fire had just broken out on a 300 m building². Around fifty men and women from the departmental fire and rescue service (Sdis 33): the mobilization was up to the significant dangers that the activity of the company established for more than a century on avenue Manon can entail -Cormier. Agropharmaceutical products (essentially phytosanitary) are manufactured and stored there from a highly toxic substance: sulfur.
Owned by the Indian group UPL since 2005, Ceraxagri Bassens is classified Seveso high threshold like several companies in the industrial-port zone. The disaster affected a key element of the production chain: the manufacturing unit (UFAB) no. 3 whose activity was stopped on 1is January like the 25th, where none of the 40 employees were on site, except the guard. The flames were contained using three lances, an action which prevented it from spreading to a neighboring building of 600 m².
Health surveillance will be extended in Cerexagri for several more days.
Y.D.
Surveillance
A delimitation of the fire zone and special monitoring were put in place, in collaboration with the management of the company, the town hall but also the Regional Directorate of the Environment, Development and Housing (Dreal): it was a question of knowing whether toxic fumes could have occurred in a neighborhood where houses are located a few dozen meters away. According to checks carried out every hour, no anomalies have been detected. The site was supplied with electricity this Thursday morning. Activity was thus able to resume, except in the building affected by the disaster.
It remains to be seen the impact on the activity which was to resume this Thursday in Cerexagri. According to a source familiar with the site (1), this damaged workshop carried out 75% of the manufacturing. Bassens town hall indicated that public health surveillance will continue over several days in agreement with management.
(1) Management did not respond to our requests this Thursday evening.
