“We have two people who entered the building, who turned the office a little bit. They cornered my assistant in her office while a second came to set fire to the workshop. That’s all I know for now”, assures Anthony Leroux, the boss of Mr. Store-Batiplast, in Flixecourt. His warehouse was set on fire on Wednesday afternoon. The assistant, the only employee present on the scene, told the gendarmes that she had been kidnapped by two men, who set the fire. The 900 square meters have almost completely burned, the very structure of the building has bent under the effect of the heat.
If the Amiens prosecutor’s office indicates that “according to the first elements, it is a voluntary act which originated in a conflict with the director of the establishment”Anthony Leroux claims to have no idea who is behind the fire. “These are neither customers nor people we have already met in store”continues the boss. “We ask ourselves a lot of questions, and until the perpetrators have been arrested, we will have no answer. We are in contact with the gendarmerie, but for the moment we have no news, the investigation continues.” The samples taken by the investigators are being analyzed.
“Very few salvageable things”
In the meantime, he went around the site, to try to save what was not damaged by the flames and by the thousands of liters of water poured by the firefighters to put out the fire. “Here, you had the entire storage workshop for finished products, that of products to be manufactured, stocks of spare parts, the various tools and materials for working on construction sites”says the one who arrived a few minutes later and could only see his business ravaged by flames more than ten meters high. “There are very few recoverable things, if anything. It’s still a little early to quantify things, but we lost a lot.” The insurances, they have already passed, to take stock. Antony Leroux wants to quickly resume his activity, from the beginning of September.
– Pierre Antoine Lefort
“The business will continue and will restart all the stronger. And it will be a nice snub to the perpetrators of the mischief”he assures. For the recovery, he can count on the solidarity of other professionals. “Many companies in the industrial zone have come together to help us, to offer us storage solutions. All the partners of Monsieur Store de France show us their support, offer us exhibition equipment, it does a lot of good .”
In touch with customers
“Some customers come in for news, which is logical. I make it a point to answer them fairly quickly. The materials will be ordered as soon as I restart my computer, either by Monday or Tuesday. We have regular emails support from customers, who are affected by what is happening to us.” Leave quickly, while waiting for the conclusions of the investigations, entrusted for the moment to the gendarmerie brigade of Flixecourt.
– Pierre Antoine Lefort