A fire broke out on Friday January 3 at the ArcelorMittal site in Dunkirk, in the North.
There were no injuries, the employees present having been evacuated shortly after the fire broke out around 1:15 p.m.
Substantial resources are mobilized.
Significant resources were dispatched to the site. A fire broke out on Friday January 3 early in the afternoon in the coking plant of the vast ArcelorMittal France site in Dunkirk, in the North, without causing any injuries, but leading to the evacuation of employees.
For an as yet undetermined reason, the fire broke out around 1:15 p.m. “on a conveyor belt supplying the coking plant with coal”indicated the management of the steel group to AFP. The flames spread into silos. “Immediately, internal firefighters intervened, then supported by external firefighters. The teams on site were evacuated and no casualties were reported.” The fire was still burning as of 2:30 p.m.
An essential link of the site
Covering 450 hectares, the ArcelorMittal site employs 3,200 employees. Of this total, the coking plant only employs around 300 people. But “if the coke oven coughs, the whole site coughs”because without it, there is no cast iron to supply the blast furnaces, no gas for the district heating network, Gaëtan Lecocq, CGT ArcelorMittal Dunkerque general secretary, expressed alarm to AFP.
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“There are no injuries, it’s material, but it’s a strategic installation”underlined the trade unionist. Before reporting the condition of the equipment: “Arcelor is letting us die, there is no more investment, we find ourselves with infrastructures in a deleterious state.” In November, ArcelorMittal decided to delay its massive investment project in carbon-free steel at this site.
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