A fire broke out this Friday, May 2, 2025 in early afternoon, in an experimental workshop on Friday, on the Sainte-Anne du Portzic site in Brest, near the beach of the same name. The area is used to store and test a number of equipment in the Ifremer environment.
In the workshop that burned, we measured the effects of corrosion in sea water.
Industrial risk discarded
A team from the corrosion Institute carried out an experiment at very high temperature when the fire started outside this test building made available by Ifremer. An employee then tried, without success, to turn off the fire with a fire extinguisher. The flames spread to the building.
The alert triggered significant means of intervention from Brest, Landerneau or Faou, fearing a risk of large -scale industrial fire. “The presence of hydrocarbons and the associated industrial risk mobilized a large number of vehicles” explained the head of the system, Captain Raphaël Le Bras. “We have made a large number of staff bebred. The operation mobilized around sixty firefighters. We have managed to cancel certain vehicles specializing in industrial risk ”.
In the end, only two 20 -liter cans of oil landed the flames that ignited the workshop. Fortunately, the neighboring building was spared from the flames. Unlike this fully ravaged room.
Asbestos and risk of maritime pollution
Around 3 p.m., the fire was generally controlled and no injuries were to be deplored among the two employees occupied on the site, joined by their colleagues employed in another building, on the heights.
But two points were still concerned in the afternoon firefighters. The generally destroyed (asbestos) roof highly destroyed and having developed dust at the time of the fire, as well as the risk of pollution through seawater plugs and evacuation pipes to shore.
“The building will remain under surveillance, there are still elements of the frame to cool and to rule out, while ensuring that there are no polluting elements from the sea”.
The Ifremer staff will also have to be able to access, in the coming days, the workshop adjoining the calcined workshop. “We store various equipment there” confirmed the permanence framework arrived at the scene of the fire.
