A fire broke out at a French produce market that supplies Paris and the surrounding region with much of its fresh food.
Capt. Marc Le Moine, a spokesman for the Paris fire service,
told The Associated Press on Sept. 25 that no one was injured. The fire was brought under control and there was no risk of it spreading from the soccer field-sized warehouse, which covers an area of 7,000 square meters (1.7 acres).
The Rungis International Market bills itself as the largest produce market in the world and employs thousands of people.
Stéphane Layani, the head of the Rungis International Market, thanked the members of the Paris fire agency. He said there will be an investigation into the cause of the blaze.
“I would like to express my full solidarity and support for Les Halles Mandar, hard hit by this fire,” Layani
wrote on Twitter. “The destruction of this warehouse saddens me deeply. Even if the Rungis Market will resume its activities tomorrow, when a Market operator is the victim of a tragedy of this nature, it is the entire Market that is affected to its heart.”
Fruit and vegetable wholesaler Les Halles Mandar, which operates a warehouse in the market,
wrote on LinkedIn that its facility had
caught on fire. It said that “employees of the Mandar Group are in shock because it is the heart of the historical activity of the company that has gone up in smoke.”
Officials told Le Figaro, a French daily morning newspaper, that wooden pallets in the warehouse caught on fire before the flames quickly engulfed the facility.
“The fire destroyed the area where we prepare custom orders for our clients in the hospitality and other sectors,” Halles Mandar President Shaoul Abramczyk,
told AFP. “We’re shocked but glad there were no injuries.”
The sprawling wholesale market employs more than 12,000 people and has warehouses filled with fruit and vegetables, seafood, meats, dairy products, and flowers from across France and around the world.
Other Fires
Over the past year or so, there have been reports of a suspiciously large number of food processing plant fires in both the United States and worldwide.An Epoch Times
investigation found numerous misleading social media posts about the fires, with a number of them occurring last year or in previous years rather than in 2022.
“In addition, the locations where fires did occur spanned a wide range of industries and the majority aren’t what would typically be considered a ‘high-value target’ that in themselves could seriously impact the food supply chain,” the investigation, published in August, revealed.
“Unfortunately, accidents happen in any industry,” Sam Gazdziak, a spokesman for the American Association of Meat Processors,
told The Epoch Times in April. “You can take a lot of steps to prevent them, but they are just tragic accidents.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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