A devastating fire at ZES, a Dutch electronics repair company and aftersales hub based in the southern Netherlands, has left significant portions of its facility destroyed. According to Managing Director and founder William de Ruyter, “A large part of the building has been destroyed,” with early estimates suggesting that around 10,000 square meters have been impacted. ZES is (partly) owned by MediaMarkt and handles their total aftersales services. All defective products collected in MediaMarkt shops are sent to ZES to be processed, repaired, and sorted, with ZES performing the repairs themselves.
Firefighting efforts spanned the entire weekend
The fire broke out on Saturday afternoon and reignited Sunday morning, causing significant challenges for emergency services. Over 200 firefighters worked tirelessly to control the blaze, finally bringing it under control by 8:50 PM on Sunday evening. Despite their efforts, more than half of the facility has been reduced to rubble.
Intense heat prolonged the battle
One of the key challenges in extinguishing the fire was the extreme heat. The fire raged for approximately 30 hours. Most of products stored, like smartphones, tablets and computers, have batteries that are extremely difficult to extinguish.
Staff safety and crisis response
Employees were present in the building when the fire broke out, but all were safely evacuated. De Ruyter and his team have since set up a crisis team to support staff and keep them informed. "The shock is understandably significant," he noted. "Seeing such a fire leaves an emotional impact on everyone involved." MediaMarkt will have quite some difficulties trying to get some kind of overview and will have to deal with 1.000 of consumers that lost their product. We do hope that ZES’ insurance will be able to pick up that bill.
Hope for a restart
Despite the scale of the disaster, ZES remains optimistic as they started to look for a new location. The goal is to be back in some business on Wednesday.
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