Floriani on site

Flames in the Siggerwiesen waste storage facility in Bergheim

(Bild: Markus Tschepp)

A fire broke out at the Siggerwiesen waste storage facility in Bergheim on Thursday morning: A shredding machine was on fire there. The fire department deployed all fire engines.

There was a fire in a hall at the Salzburg waste disposal plant in Siggerwiesen on Thursday morning. The fire broke out on the conveyor belt of a large waste shredding machine. The waste runs over the belt to remove metal residue before the rest is shredded. An employee noticed the smoke.

The in-house fire-fighting team responded quickly and, according to Siggerwiesen plant manager Josef Weilhartner, was able to prevent "millions in damage". The Bergheim fire department was alerted at 9.42 a.m. because an automatic fire alarm system had been triggered. The alarm was set to level 2, so the Bergheim fire brigade deployed all of its fire engines, with a total of 41 firefighters on duty.

Because the conveyor belt is located in a hall, dangerous fumes could have collected under the ceiling. Thanks to the rapid intervention of their own fire-fighting team and the arrival of the Floriani, the worst was prevented. The operation was ended shortly before 11 a.m.