A fire that broke out on Wednesday morning at 3:00 am has totally destroyed one of four kilns with 30 tons of malt and the roof of the historic brick building of Mich. Weyermann Maltings in Bamberg, Germany. Luckily, no-one was injured but the damage to the property is said to be about 1 million Euros.
The fire brigade took eight hours to extinguish the fire before the necessary clean-up work could be started. A street nearby had to be closed for public traffic because it was not clear if there was a danger of collapse of at least parts of the listed building. However, the closure could be lifted during the afternoon.
Shipping of malt could be immediately resumed but production is still affected. The Bamberg criminal police department has started the investigation into the cause of the fire. A technical defect while drying the malt in the sixth floor of the seven-floored-building is assumed to be the cause of the inflammation.
Weyermann Maltings in Bamberg, Germany is one of the leading producers of specialty malts in the world. The company which is led in the fourth generation by Sabine Weyermann and her husband Thomas Kraus-Weyermann operates three maltings in Germany with a combined yearly production capacity of 110,000 tons of malt. The main plant in Bamberg where the fire broke out is by far the biggest of the three and produces 60,000 tons annually.
