The departure of the late, which declared itself, Wednesday afternoon, in a workshop containing uranium was extinguished and no radioactive substance was affected by the fire, announces the nuclear security authority .
Le Monde with AFP and reuters
The fire that was triggered inside a workshop containing uranium from the Framatome factory in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme) was mastered. “No radioactive substance has been touched by fire,” announced the nuclear security authority (ASN ), Wednesday September 21.
The fire was detected at 4:25 p.m., according to the prefecture, and the operator informed ASN at 5:10 p.m., according to the latter. “The controls carried out by the operator have not noted radioactivity in the air of the premises or outside,” said the ASN, which adds that the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) is will return on site Thursday to “perform additional measures in the environment”.
The event, due to a “printer that caught fire”, lasted approximately an hour, explained to the Agency France-Presse the chief inspector of ASN, Christophe Quintin. The start of fire was brought under control by internal means to the company. Separately, around forty firefighters, “including teams specializing in technological risks”, were mobilized on the spot, reported the Drôme prefecture.
evacuated personnel, arrested production
“The start of fire detected inside a factory workshop was extinguished by the teams of firefighters mobilized on the site”, added the prefecture, according to which “the departmental operational center has been lifted as well as the system on the site “, in a press release.
The factory employs nine hundred and fifty people. On its website, the Framatome group, mainly held by Electicity of France (EDF), mentions that its factory of Romans-sur-Isère manufactures “combustible assemblies for electricity production reactors” and “combustible elements for Research reactors based on enriched uranium “. “There was a start of fire in a workshop, following which the security teams intervened, allowing to quickly control the fire,” said Framatome.
The printer caught fire in a place where nuclear materials were stored in “plexiglass boxes”, said Quintin. This uranium was solid. On site is also 1.7 kilogram of uranium in the form of recovery powder, but “far enough from the home,” he added. The fire started in a 20 square meter room, according to the prefecture. “Radioactivity measures were taken by the operator on chimney filters,” added the ASN inspector.
The staff was evacuated, production in this arrested building and all the premises, within the factory, were put in safety, according to the operator. Framatome has set up “a surveillance system in order to prevent any new start of fire in the premises concerned”, according to ASN, which authorized it to “lift its internal emergency plan”.