On Saturday evening, a fire broke out at the Kemin chrome mine located in Keminmaa. Employees at the site managed to extinguish the fire before the rescue services were dispatched to the scene. The emergency was reported as a medium-sized building fire at 8:43 PM, prompting a response from nine rescue units, according to reports. The Lapland rescue services indicated that the fire started on the ground at a conveyor belt transporting ore to the processing plant, with a suspected technical fault as the cause.

Initially triggered by an automatic alarm, the situation escalated when smoke was observed, leading to a call for rescue services. Fortunately, the fire did not spread beyond its origin and was fully extinguished by the time the rescue team arrived. The fire department confirmed that the site was secured, and no further hazards were present following their investigation.

The Kemin mine, operated by Outokumpu Chrome Oy, is Finland's largest underground chrome mine and is the only chrome mine within the EU area. Outokumpu processes the chrome ore into ferrochrome, a critical raw material for stainless steel production. The company has been expanding the depth of this underground mine from 500 meters to 1,000 meters between 2017 and 2023, illustrating the significance of this facility in both national and EU contexts.