“our work tool has gone up in smoke”

In Ouistreham (Calvados) the Auto Promo 14 car garage was completely destroyed by a fire on Monday January 6, 2025.

The next morning, Tuesday, there was not much left of the hangar which housed the company, established in the Maresquier area since 2015.

The preserved reception area

The fire, which broke out on Monday around 4:30 p.m., destroyed almost the entire building, without causing any casualties. Only the Home section was able to be saved by the firefighters. “Indeed,” specifies the chief warrant officer of the Ouistreham firefighters, Aldéric Madeleine, “in a major disaster like this, we seek to preserve strategic places. In this case, the reception, which was not yet touched upon our arrival, is one, because of all the documents it contains, often necessary for the future.

Since late Monday afternoon, firefighters from several Calvados barracks have been hard at work putting out the flames. The Ouistreham barracks received numerous reinforcements from Caen, Ifs, Troarn and Creully.

“When we are faced with a very big disaster,” continues Aldéric Madeleine, “we put in place a complete network and complementarity of equipment between the different emergency centers, to ensure interventions.”

Four employees

The owners of the garage, tenants of the premises, Mehdi Mlayah and Kevin Journaux, were present on the premises part of the night and returned very early this Tuesday morning. “We had been there since 2015, with two other employees. Our business was the sale of used vehicles and the repair and maintenance of vehicles. »

It was our work tool that went up in smoke. Now it is unclear when this will be able to restart. It might be very long.

A short circuit in a car?

According to Mehdi Mlayah, it was a short circuit on a gasoline car that caused the start of the fire, which then spread very quickly, despite the use of fire extinguishers. Inside, three vehicles were on fire. But many cars were able to be sheltered before the fire invaded the entire hangar.

As for the firefighters, we don’t yet know what happened. “In any case, an investigation will be carried out by the gendarmes. But the presence of numerous flammable products, gas bottles, acetylene, oils, tires and thermal vehicles can explain the rapid development of the fire. This is what made the work difficult and dangerous. We stayed until we were certain that there was no longer any risk.”

Another fire a few meters away in 2023

Aldéric Madeleine remembers having also intervened in the fire which had destroyed the Brico Ouistreham store, a few dozen meters from the present fire, in January 2023. Again evoking a previous fire which had also taken place at the beginning of the year, he did not can help but deplore: “It’s a curse, always at the beginning of the year, the same type of fire.”

From our correspondent Catherine La Torre

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