It all started a few minutes after five o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, November 23, 2020. The fire most probably started at the warehouse on the ground floor, according to the experts, and quickly spread through Mulino Maroggia’s main building. No one was injured, but the fire caused extensive damage to the structure.
During that afternoon and evening, people living close by were advised to keep their doors and windows closed and avoid approaching the fire area. The tragedy impacted not only the owner’s family and employees, but the whole community of Maroggia, a former municipality in the canton of Ticino which now is part of Val Mara, with a population of about 730.
In the middle of the chaos, still on that tragic Monday, while firefighters were trying to put out the fire, Alessandro Fontana, Owner and Managing Director of Mulino Maroggia, called Bühler for help. On the other end of the video call was Martin Ruckstuhl, Sales Manager for Milling Solutions in Switzerland, who could see some of the flames in the background of the call and experience the tension in the air. Fontana and his team needed immediate assistance. They needed to get the right advice and full support to manage Mulino Maroggia out of that crisis. Even as the mill was burning, the mindset was to rebuild and rise from the ashes.