A fire broke out on the premises of the Dutch waste management company AVR in Rozenburg near Rotterdam on Thursday morning. After it appeared to have been brought under control in the afternoon of the day, it flared up again last night and developed into a major fire with heavy smoke, AVR announced this morning.
According to the waste management company, the fire broke out in the central turbine hall of the waste to energy plant, leaving large parts of the site without electricity. The firefighting efforts are difficult, with firefighters struggling to reach the blaze in the large hall. "Firefighters are hoping that the fire will burn through the roof of the building so that firefighting operations can be carried out from above through the opening that has been created," AVR said. The efforts are supported by fireboats in the harbour basin. A crane has been called to create an opening in the building's side wall.
The cause of the fire is not known yet. AVR is a leading processor of household waste in the Netherlands, operating two waste incineration facilities in Rozenburg and Duiven. The energy from waste plant in Rozenburg has an authorised treatment capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per year. In addition to waste from Rotterdam, it treats waste from The Hague, Leiden, Utrecht and other Dutch cities.
About three years ago, a modernisation programme was launched for the plant, which originally dates back to the 1970s. AVR has been owned by a holding company of Hong Kong industrialist Li Ka-shing since 2013.
