Czech Republic: 70,000 pairs of shoes destroyed in a fire

A fire in a warehouse in Zlin, Czech Republic, destroyed 70,000 pairs of shoes on Thursday. The warehouse is located on the site of the former Bata shoe manufacturing empire. The company Vasky, which manufactured the shoes, reported its losses at seven million dollars.

No one was injured, firefighters confirmed. They added that the fire was still out of control on Thursday afternoon and the building continued to collapse.

“We have lost almost everything and we are facing the most difficult challenge in Vasky's history. It hurts,” Vasky founder, Vaclav Stanek, responded on Facebook.

He estimated the value of the destroyed shoes and clothing at the site to be approximately seven million dollars.

Stanek founded Vasky in 2016 to continue the shoemaking tradition in Zlin, which was started by Tomas Bata. Bata established his shoe factory in the city in 1894.

After his death in 1932, Bata's company was taken over by his half-brother, Jan Antonin Bata. He fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939 and later settled in Brazil. There, he grew the business into a global shoe empire.

The Bata factory in Zlin was nationalised and renamed Svit after the communists took power and established a planned economy in Czechoslovakia in 1948. It closed following the 1989 Revolution, which overthrew the communist regime. This occurred four years before Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The site was later renovated to house regional government offices and a museum.

Stanek stated that Vasky, which also produces shoes in neighbouring Slovakia, would continue manufacturing despite the loss.

“We lost what we made, not why we make it. We still have the people, the know-how and the will to start over,” Stanek added.