Fire at Lafarge Cement Plant: BELFOR Austria Restores Operations in Under Six Weeks
Case study from the archive · First published in 2011
After a fire caused by an electrical short circuit at the Lafarge cement plant in Mannersdorf, Austria, BELFOR delivered a rapid, structured response to prevent corrosion and production downtime. Within days, a detailed restoration plan was approved, and a 60‑person team began cleaning and restoring damaged systems, surfaces, and equipment under strict safety conditions. The plant was fully restored and back in operation in less than six weeks, demonstrating the value of speed, precision, and experience in large industrial fire losses.
Electrical short circuit causes fire damage
On 6th January 2011, the Lafarge cement works in Mannersdorf in Austria caught fire. The cause was an electrical short circuit in the raw mill. Various electrical systems and two large engines were destroyed. The company fire brigade, supported by the voluntary fire brigades of the surrounding towns, began fighting the fire immediately. And when it came to repairing the damage, the response was no less rapid.
You must not drag your heels too long after a fire if you want to avoid consequential damage due to corrosion from extinguishing water, which is why damage reports do not sit on the back burner at BELFOR, but are immediately prioritised. The flames were hardly out when BELFOR Austria received the “red-hot” press report. Martin Salomon, Head of Technical Restoration, responded by return with an e-mail to the Lafarge corporate management team in Vienna.
Four days later, he was standing on the site of the cement giant to carry out an initial inspection with the CEO of BELFOR Austria, Heimo Ernst Weiss, and a representative of Cunningham Lindsey, the loss adjuster of the insurance company AXA.
Better but not cheaper
All damage to the floors, walls and machines was carefully recorded. A detailed restoration quote with a time schedule was then drawn up. But how do you sell a service when there is a lower rival quote on the table, as was the case here? You convince the client on the basis of precision and efficiency, and in this case with exact prices per square metre and a hard-and-fast time frame. The fact that Cunningham Lindsey had already had good experiences with BELFOR in many European countries helped to oil the wheels. The order was signed the very next day.
No time to lose
The very next day, 14th January, the restoration work on site began. 60 BELFOR personnel under the supervision of Manfred Haindl removed soot and debris and cleaned the walls and floors that had been marked by the fire. Because of the exceptionally high walls and silos, scaffolding had to be erected throughout the plant, which required a great deal of manual skill and a good head for heights.
This meant that the safety measures that needed to be observed throughout the whole operation were particularly stringent. All the work was completed in less than six weeks to the extreme satisfaction of the Lafarge management – and the freshly restored plant resumed full operation.
