 "Liberté"s active career was cut short on 25 September 1911 when a fire broke out in one of the ship's propellant magazines and led to a detonation of the charges stored there, destroying the ship in a tremendous explosion that killed 286 of her crew.The blast also damaged several other vessels and killed crewmen on six neighboring ships.An investigation revealed that the standard French propellant, "Poudre B", was prone to decomposition that rendered it very unstable; it had likely been the culprit in several other ammunition fires in other ships.