A massive fire broke out in a balcony in an apartment in Essen’s Westviertel on Monday night. The entire building with a length of 65 metres with around 50 apartments caught fire.
The fire was reported to have been put under control at around 9 A.M but had not yet been fully extinguished. Christoph Riss, a spokesman for the fire brigade that put out the flame confirmed that three were injured and taken to hospital after they inhaled the smoke from the fire.
The Essen Fire Brigade said they had never experienced a fire of such magnitude before:
The Storm “Antonia” had led to a fire, and within a short time the building was completely burned down.
BILD wrote that around 100 people were taken to a safe place outside the compound with those responsible for the evictions saying this according to the information received.
The total number of those expected to be in the building who needed rescuing was not verified but s far all those who were present are being rescued or are still being rescued.
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The massive fire in the apartment in Essen is not yet under control
Riss added that it is very difficult to confirm the fire is under control because rescue teams have yet to go into every apartment to make sure that there are no injured people in them.
There is small number of people suffering injuries so far but no one is missing.
One of the factors that made it easy to carry out the rescues was that smoke detectors were installed throughout the building that informed the inhabitants of the growing embers.
According to the fire department, the buildings fire alarm went off at 2:15 A.M
A witness, when questioned, said that it was about two o’clock when he wanted to get to bed and turned off the light and upon looking out the window saw smoke coming in. He tried to contact the fire service immediately.
According to him the fire must have spread more rapidly due to the presence of the wind.
The fire spread within 20 minutes and was consuming the entire complex.
Source: BILD