The thick plume of black smoke was visible for several kilometers around, particularly by motorists using the A6 and A10 motorways.
A violent fire broke out this Saturday early in the afternoon in a Roma camp located in Antony.
More than 200 people had to be evacuated.
No injuries were reported.
It was around 2 p.m. when the fire started in this camp located on 1,500 m² of land belonging to the Île-de-France Roads Department and located at 2, rue Alexis-de-Tocqueville, on the edge of the Antonypole activity zone wedged between the two expressways, on the edge of the commune of Wissous (Essonne).
Around twenty barracks were ravaged by flames over an area of 500 m², despite the rapid intervention of firefighters from the Antony, Plessis-Clamart, Bourg-la-Reine and Villejuif (Val-de-Clamart) barracks. Marl).
🚨 #Intervention |
Today, around 2 p.m., the Paris firefighters were called to a precarious installation fire in Antony (92).
5 lances, including 3 high powers and 1 cannon lance on FMOGP were necessary.
🔴No victims are to be deplored.
Learn more👇 pic.twitter.com/rgoaMZUclb
— PompiersParis (@PompiersParis) February 10, 2024
In total, 73 firefighters and 17 vehicles were engaged to control this fire, using six water hoses.
Several gas cylinders were present on the site.
None exploded, avoiding the missile effect as can often be the case in this type of disaster.
The causes of the fire remain unknown, but an electrical short circuit could be at the origin.
Once the fire was contained, a police force was put in place to prevent residents from reinvesting in the slum until it was safe.
The latter, illegally installed on this plot since the end of 2017, the vast majority refused shelter in the Rabats gymnasium offered by the municipality of Antony.
Only four teenagers, supported by the French Red Cross and the Romeurope association, were accommodated there.
All the other members of these fifty families of Romanian nationality spent the night from Saturday to Sunday aboard their vans a few meters from the camp, before finally returning to the premises this Sunday when the police force was lifted.
The municipality provided them with a dumpster so that they could throw away the charred debris.