The Brussels firefighters are currently hard at work for a hangar fire behind the building in Koekelberg, rue François Hellinckx. “Strong smoke”, “big fire” … according to various testimonies and the photos that have reached us via the orange button alert us, the smoke column is quite impressive.
Residents are asked to close doors and windows and turn off ventilation systems. The fire rages a few meters from the railway tracks taken by the SNCB trains, themselves a few meters from the Metro rails of the Stib.
As a result, repercussions are to be deplored on the side of metros and trains. For the STIB, the traffic in the metro 6 has been interrupted locally since 10 am in both directions “between Simonis and Delacroix”. “But it is rather on the side of the SNCB,” said Cindy Arendts, spokesperson for the Stib. The SNCB has not yet responded to our requests.
On the Infrabel side, the manager of the rail network, the situation is not very complicated: “We are not concerned, but there is smoke towards the tracks. The firefighters recommended to interrupt traffic, between Brussels-West and Simonis, “said Frédéric Sacré, spokesperson for Infrabel. “If it was a fire near the tracks, the heat can melt cables, but here, this is not the case, the fire is far away, but the firefighters believe that smoke is chased towards the track,” adds the spokesperson for the manager of the rail network.
At 10:45 am, the fire was contained, said the spokesperson for the Brussels Firemen Walter Derieu. The cause is not yet known, but there has been no injuries to deplore.
