An explosion occurred on Monday afternoon at the Elkem Silicone factory in Saint-Fons, near Lyon, injuring at least four people, three of them seriously burned. The fire was brought under control in the evening, and confinement measures were lifted with no reported toxicity risk. The Rhône prefecture deployed a major emergency response at this Seveso-classified site.
The explosion rang out around 2:30 p.m. in a workshop at the Elkem Silicone factory in Saint-Fons, a suburb of Lyon in the chemical valley. This area hosts about a dozen Seveso-classified facilities, subject to stringent safety regulations due to high industrial risks.
According to the Rhône prefecture, the incident injured at least four employees, three seriously from burns. These victims, in absolute emergency, were treated by firefighters and the Samu; two were transferred to Lyon hospitals.
Plan Orsec was activated immediately, with the internal operations plan (POI) deployed at 2:45 p.m. By 3:30 p.m., 34 vehicles and 86 firefighters were on site, setting up a one-kilometer security perimeter. An FR-Alert message was sent to confine local residents and bar entry to the area.
The Rhône prefect, posting on X, stated that the prefect delegate for defense and security was on site with the mayor of Saint-Fons, and the departmental operations center had been activated. The fire was controlled in the early evening, despite a new smoke release that was quickly contained. The prefecture identifies hydrogen used in the factory as the « most plausible » cause, pending firefighters' findings.
Measures were lifted in the late afternoon: confinement, A7 highway closure, and disruptions to rail and river traffic on the Rhône were all resumed. « There is no toxicity risk at this time », the prefecture assured.
The site had a fatal explosion in 2016, then under the name Bluestar Silicones, when a flammable liquid escaped from a barrel, leading to judicial fines for the company and a subcontractor.
