For a reason that is still undetermined, a fire broke out around 1:15 p.m. “on a conveyor belt supplying the coking plant with coal,” ArcelorMittal France management said.AFP by email. “Immediately, internal firefighters intervened, then supported by external firefighters,” adds ArcelorMittal. “The teams on site were evacuated and no casualties were reported.” Not counting the internal resources at ArcelorMittal, a large device comprising 29 vehicles and 65 firefighters was deployed on site, reported the Northern prefecture.
Around 3:30 p.m., the fire was contained. It did not require confinement of the population, the atmospheric readings carried out by the Atmo organization, which monitors air quality, showing no danger, according to the prefecture. Covering 450 hectares, the ArcelorMittal site in Dunkirk employs 3,200 employees. Of this total, the coking plant only employs around 300 people but “if the coke plant coughs, the whole site coughs”, because without it, there is no cast iron to feed the blast furnaces. , no gas for the Dunkirk district heating network, expressed alarm to theAFP Gaëtan Lecocq, general secretary CGT ArcelorMittal Dunkerque.
“There are no injuries, it is material, but it is a strategic installation,” he stressed. “Arcelor is letting us die, there is no more investment, we find ourselves with infrastructures in a deleterious state,” denounces the unionist. In November, the steelmaker decided to delay its massive investment project in carbon-free steel on this Dunkirk site, demanding measures from Brussels to “preserve the competitiveness” of European steel in the face of Chinese competition.
Management also announced at the end of November the upcoming closure of two sites in France, in Reims (Marne) and Denain (North), resulting in the loss of 135 jobs.
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