Video: Fishing vessel blaze at Port of Grandchamp-Maisy
Fire has destroyed a trawler in the French port of Grandchamp-Maisy in Normandy, just west of Omaha Beach.
The French trawler Normandie caught fire last Thursday night in the small French port of Grandchamp-Maisy. The vessel was ablaze and adrift in the confined waters of the port when rescue services arrived in the early hours of Good Friday.
Video footage from the scene shows the vessel burning fiercely and lighting up the night sky with jets of flame. Local emergency services dispatched ten fire engines and 31 firefighters from the surrounding region tackled the blaze.
Other vessels managed to return the trawler to the pier, but efforts to extinguish the fire were hampered by inaccessible hot spots within the vessel’s hold. The burned out vessel sank to the bottom and responders are not certain that it will re-float.
“The firefighters were faced with difficulties in accessing the interior of the ship to reach the residual [hot spots]. In addition, the lack of stability of the ship did not allow [them] to progress in safety, forcing them to adapt their intervention techniques,” said the Calvados Departmental Fire and Rescue Service in a statement.
Footage of the blaze can be seen here.
