BULGARIA — On September 12, Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said isolated fires after overnight explosions at an EMCO ammunition depot near Gorni Varpishta, in Dryanovo Municipality, were not spreading, and that every ammunition depot in the country would be inspected.
The Gabrovo District Prosecution Office said no one was injured. Company and municipal accounts described two security guards leaving the site.
Bulgaria’s BG-ALERT emergency warning system, the national public warning network, was activated. Demerdzhiev said no evacuation of nearby towns was required.
The Gabrovo District Prosecution Office, in a Saturday release carried by the Veliko Tarnovo Appellate Prosecution Office, said the fire began around 8:00 PM UTC Friday (11:00 PM local) in warehouse No. 12 at EMCO’s ammunition and explosives storage base in the land of Gorni Varpishta. An explosion followed.
The office said the building and the property inside that warehouse were destroyed, the fire was brought under control promptly, and it did not spread to other properties or forested areas.
The blaze is the second at an EMCO site in five weeks. Fire and explosions destroyed an EMCO ammunition warehouse near Belitsa, in Tryavna Municipality, on August 10. Expert examinations from that case remain pending, Gabrovo District Prosecutor Tihomir Petkov said.
Demerdzhiev said every possible cause of the new fire would be investigated and that outside interference had not been ruled out.
EMCO, a private Bulgarian defense manufacturer owned by Emilian Gebrev, said the September 11 incident was part of a series of sabotage acts against the Bulgarian defense industry and that the depot’s purpose ruled out human error.
