PARIS: A fire broke out on Friday at the “Maison de la Radio” (Radio house), a vast and iconic circular building in Paris housing several media operations, but was quickly brought under control.

Employees were evacuated and there were no reports of injuries from the fire which began on the upper floors of the building, where extensive renovation work is taking place.

“The fire is out,” fire service chief Gabriel Plus told reporters around three hours after it broke out.

Thick black smoke was seen billowing from several windows on the upper floors of the building and the Paris fire service deployed 16 fire engines and 60 firefighters to the scene.

Plus said the thickness of the smoke was likely due to the incineration of construction materials used for the building’s renovation.

Two radio stations, France Info and France Inter, stopped transmission due to the blaze but restarted shortly afterwards.

“I heard a big noise, like an explosion,” said Faouzi Zenassi, head of a team of construction workers on the site.

Firefighters put the explosions down to the windows blowing out under the force of the inferno.

“We don’t yet know how bad the damage is, but it seems considerable”, French President Francois Hollande told reporters at a joint news conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Published in Dawn, November 1st , 2014