The printing works of the Banque de France Chamalires (Puy-de-Dme) was hit on Wednesday morning by a fire which did not cause any casualties, we learned from concordant sources.
The printing works of the Banque de France Chamalires (Puy-de-Dme) was hit on Wednesday morning by a violent fire which did not cause any victims, we learned from concordant sources.
The fire, which started at 10:15 a.m. from a banknote design laboratory, was brought under control by midday, according to the prefecture.
There are no victims to be deplored except for a few people inconvenienced by the smoke, firefighters Lieutenant-Colonel Mickal Besseyre told the press.
Thirty-four people were slightly injured and ten were evacuated to the CHU, including two firefighters, according to the report established by the prefecture.
At the time of the incident, 387 people were present on the site.
At the start, the fire was very violent (…) but with the means implemented, we were able to contain the disaster fairly quickly, explained Mr. Besseyre.
About 70 firefighters and 24 machines were mobilized according to the prefecture.
Images posted on social media showed a thick plume of black smoke rising from the building at the start of the fire. At midday, only a slight release of white smoke was still visible, according to an AFP journalist.
Starting from a small room, the fire spread to a 300m2 building whose roof was pierced: There will inevitably be an impact on the production of banknotes, but we are not worried because the overall productive tool has not don’t touch. It will be necessary to put in place appropriate measures (…) it could have been worse, underlined the director of the site Pierre-Yves Boissinot.
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We do not know how the fire broke out, there will necessarily be a judicial inquiry, indicated the prefect of Puy-de-Dme Philippe Chopin, assuring that there was no danger for the population because it there were no toxic products where the fire started.
Several streets in the district, bordering Clermont-Ferrand, were closed to traffic. The departmental operational center, a crisis management tool, was activated at the prefecture.
It is in this printing works, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2021, that banknotes are produced in France. A little more than half of the production concerns euros, the rest both composed of other currencies such as the CFA franc. Some 2.5 billion banknotes are printed there every year.
Planned for several years, the move of the printing plant and its approximately 700 employees to the Vic-le-Comte site (Puy-de-Dme) must be confirmed in the coming months, to be completed by 2026.