From the Château de Rivière, located in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (east of the Loiret), which was burnt down on the night of Saturday February 8 to 9, there is no longer much. “It’s a ruin. There is no more roof, no more frame, the first floor is completely destroyed. According to the gendarmes there is no longer any floor and it can collapse ”said to Here (France Bleu) The mayor of the town, André Jean. No victim is to be deplored.
About fifty firefighters went there but their operations were slowed down by the difficulty of access to the site. The amount of damage is estimated at several hundred thousand euros. The mayor submitted the building to a peril decree.
Built in the 19th century, the castle of Rivière belonged for a long time to the Ivorian politician Philippe Yacé. Since its death in 1998, the building has changed owner several times. The latest, unknown to the town hall, left the castle abandoned. The building without electricity has become a squat. “It was a very beautiful castle and well maintained but as the last owner did not come, he left this squatted, vandalized and abandoned castle. I do not understand that we can buy goods of such quality to leave them in decrepitude ”Sorry the mayor.
An investigation was opened to find out the causes of the fire. Clues, however, converge to suggest that the fire could be of criminal origin.
The mayor regrets that fires regularly occur in the region, often in unoccupied castles. In the Gâtinais in particular (an old county extending on the departments of Loiret, Seine-et-Marne and Yonne), three historic residences have been partially destroyed by fires in recent years, without any link “Could not be established between the various cases” had declared the public prosecutor of Montargis (Loiret) Loïc Abril in the newspaper The Republic of the Center,, “These are common phenomena on this kind of goods due to the inability of the owners to secure sites. There may be breaches in the fences that allow people to enter ”.
More recently, in January, two fires also touched historical buildings west of the Paris region: the abandoned château of Serquigny in Eure and the Manor of Kernault in Finistère. But in Kernault, the fire started while the manor was being restored.
