• A fire broke out on Monday evening in a 3,000 m2 agricultural building housing 10 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

  • The firefighters believe that the risk of explosion is eliminated thanks to preventive measures such as massive watering.

  • As a precaution, the few inhabitants of the houses in this rural sector were evacuated.

The worst has been avoided.

About fifty firefighters and means specific to "chemical risks" were engaged on Monday at the end of the day in Casseneuil, north of Agen, to contain the fire in a 3,000 m2 agricultural building housing ammonium nitrate, said the emergency services in the evening.

“We have a favorable feeling about the evolution of the situation.

The biggest danger [the explosion] seems to have been eliminated but we remain cautious, ”underlined Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Aygalenq, communication officer at the departmental fire and rescue service (Sdis) of Lot-et-Garonne.

The fire did not cause any injuries but the building, mainly occupied by hay bales and almost destroyed by the fire, was a source of concern for the firefighters due to the presence of a storage of 10 tons of ammonium nitrate, a substance in the composition of fertilizers.

Houses evacuated as a precaution

Given its potentially explosive nature in contact with fire, the firefighters had set off around 6 p.m. significant surveillance resources and established an evacuation perimeter of 500 meters around the incident that occurred at a place called Tartifume, in a "hyper rural ”and sparsely populated, said the communications officer.

Fourteen people residing in the few surrounding farms were evacuated in the evening and relocated by the town hall of Casseneuil.

According to Lieutenant-Colonel Aygalenq, "large hydraulic means" with "thousands of liters of water per minute" were engaged to "greatly lower the temperature on the building" and prevent the "risks" of explosion represented by this chemical substance associated with the deadly disasters of AZF in Toulouse in September 2001 and Beirut in early August 2020.

All risk of atmospheric pollution ruled out

As a precaution, the evacuation perimeter was maintained for the night as well as the site surveillance operations which retain continuous static watering means around the building, but with a "lighter device".

The “exclusion zone” prohibiting access to the site within a radius of 200 m was reduced to 80 m for the night.

In this perimeter can only enter certain firefighters equipped under high protection to position lances, said Lieutenant-Colonel Aygalenq.

According to the officer, the readings carried out Monday evening ruled out any “risk of atmospheric pollution” because of the “dilution of fumes” by the massive watering of the site.

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