Watch: Warehouse With 900 Tonnes of Recycled Lithium Car Batteries Bursts Into Flames

A massive fire broke out at a French industrial site used for recycling hybrid and electric car batteries on Saturday, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air.

The town of Viviez in the department of Aveyron in Southern France was shrouded by black clouds of smoke after a fire broke out at a warehouse used to hold hybrid and electric car lithium batteries. Overall, the site held an estimated 900 tonnes of lithium batteries, however, officials claimed that the cause of the fire has still not been determined, Le Figaro reports.

A “preventive confinement over a radius of 500 meters” was initially put in place surrounding the site on Saturday afternoon but it was later lifted in the evening after it was determined that the smoke did not present a danger.

Local authorities claimed that an analysis of the thick smoke from the fire found that its toxicity levels were not a risk to the general public.

“The measurements carried out, on-site and around the site, with regard to the substances emitted in the smoke have made it possible to rule out any risk for the populations,” the Aveyron prefecture said in a statement.

However, Météo France, France’s national meteorological service, has been tasked with modelling the spread of the smoke and determining any possible atmospheric effects of the pollution.

Around sixty firefighters were needed to contain the blaze on Saturday, including a specialised team due to the technological risk posed by the large quantities of lithium batteries at the site. A

Although the fire largely subsided by Sunday morning, some thirty firefighters remained at the location to surveil the area and to stamp out any more fires if necessary.

“The fire is confined to its perimeter and no longer threatens, it will take a long time to be extinguished but no longer represents a risk for the population nor for the environment nor for the surrounding businesses,” Mickaël Lecoq, director of the fire and rescue department of Aveyron told Franceinfo.

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