On 27th February a fire broke out at SIG Sauer’s factory in Eckernförde, Germany. No staff were injured but the local fire brigade did respond to a call out to fight the fire.

The fire started in the Eckernförde factory’s underground firing range where SIG Sauer test their weapons. SIG Sauer established their factory at Eckernförde in Schleswig – Holstein in northern Germany back in the 1970s and is the company’s main manufacturing base and head office.

According to media reports, four fire trucks responded with a total of 17 firefighters on the scene. Despite this, the blaze had already been put out by SIG Sauer staff. The Field Operations Officer of the local fire brigade, Alexander Rüß, said: “the employees of Sig Sauer reacted well and already combated the fire with hand fire extinguishers.”

SIG Sauer’s Eckernförde factory, the fire broke out in the underground basement test firing range beneath the factory (SIG Sauer)

The extent of the damage caused is not known although the local newspaper Kieler Nachrichten (or Kiel News) reported that the fire damage was minimal with some parts of the firing test range’s wall cladding burned. The rubber cladding used at the range caught fire but the exact cause of the blaze is not yet disclosed.

The Eckernförder firefighters reportedly helped ventilate the basement firing range and clear the smoke. As well as controlling the factory’s in house ventilation system “to make sure that the fire could not continue in it.” The firefighters were on scene for around an hour before leaving. Factory fires are not uncommon: we’ve recently reported on the fire at Hi-Point’s Ohio Factory back in January and the explosion and fire at the Cugir Arms Factory in Romania in which an employee was sadly killed in November 2018. Luckily no one was injured in the fire at SIG Eckernförder factory.

Sources: 1 2