Great fire in Altenessen: Fire brigade fights for hours against metal scrap fire!

Great fire in Altenessen: Fire brigade fights for hours against metal scrap fire!

In the night of Monday, April 21, 2025, a devastating fire broke out at a recycling and recycling yard in the Altenessen district of Essen. According to the reports of Welt had an area of ​​around 10,000 square meters and reached heights of up to 15 meters. The fire brigade's emergency services were alerted around 1 a.m. when a first emergency call was made.

Around 70 firefighters were in large -scale use to combat the fire, the large amounts of metal scrap were affected. A fire brigade boat with a strong pump was mobilized to transport water from the Rhein-Herne channel over a distance of more than 1,500 meters, which supports the extinguishing work. The fire brigade used excavators and wheel loaders to pull the metal scrap apart and create a wheat, which made the extinguishing work much easier.

long extinguishing work and measures

The fire brigade took several hours to control the fire. Measures such as excavation with excavators and the use of three turntable ladders and a large tank fire engine were necessary to contain the flames. As WDR , the extinguishing work continued until at least Tuesday morning, while smaller embers were further processed.

residents in the area were asked to keep their windows and doors closed in order to protect themselves from any smells and smoke that may be harmful to health. The State Environment Agency carried out extensive pollutant measurements in order to rule out a risk to the population. So far, no hazardous substances have been found in the flue gases, even in neighboring Gelsenkirchen there were no harmful breathing poisons.

unclear cause of the fire and road barriers

The exact cause of the fire is so far unclear. The police blocked several streets in the area to ensure the necessary security measures. The operator of the recycling center was cooperative and provided support in the extinguishing work. Feuertrutz points out that such large fires in recycling and recycling systems should give rise to the increase in preventive measures in fire protection.

The high -relevance of such incidents also underlined by the current discussion about fire protection statistics in Germany, which is reported in various sources. A uniform and comprehensive statistics that shows fire causes and sequences could help to avoid such events better in the future.