Pending investigations
Major fire in Essen residential complex: “Massive spread of fire surprised everyone”
In the western part of the city of Essen, an entire block of flats had been on fire since early Monday morning. The fire broke out shortly after midnight on Bargmannstrasse.
© Christoph Reichwein / DPA
A major fire has completely destroyed a residential complex in Essen’s west district. Fire barriers should have prevented the massive spread of the fire. How the catastrophe could have happened is now to be investigated.
This article first appeared on RTL.de.
In view of the devastating images, it borders on a miracle that the fire in a residential complex in Essen did not happen again. Especially since storm “Antonia” fanned the fire violently during the night. The mild outcome is apparently due to smoke detectors in the relatively newly built complex – but also to the civil courage of individuals. Nevertheless, the fire brigade is puzzled as to why the flames were able to eat through the building so quickly.
Essen fire brigade surprised by the rapid spread of the fire
Some embers are still flaring up, but the fire is now under control. The police will soon start investigating, because it is still unclear why the fire broke out in the ten-year-old building complex – and how it was able to spread so quickly.
One factor was certainly the storm “Antonia”, whose gusts of wind fanned the flames. Nevertheless, the “massive spread of fire surprised all emergency services,” emphasized a police spokesman. The Essen fire brigade has “definitely” never experienced a fire of comparable magnitude. That is a completely unknown magnitude. Normally in modern buildings like this there are fire barriers, so something like that is actually not possible. Why it could have happened now, however, must be investigated.
Modern new building had fire doors, more fire-resistant insulation
In fact, the new building in Essen from 2015 and in accordance with building regulations was equipped with fire doors to prevent a fire from spreading quickly, said a spokesman for the homeowner “Vivawest Wohnen GmbH”. The fire doors were last serviced in March 2021. The insulation of the house is mainly done with mineral fiber boards because they are less susceptible to fire than polysterol insulation materials.
There are a total of 112 apartments between one and four rooms in the complex, and 39 apartments with around 100 tenants were affected by the fire. Vivawest has promised them hotel rooms in nearby hotels at short notice at the expense of the housing company.
No missing persons – smoke detectors as lifesavers The mayor of the city of Essen, Thomas Kufen (CDU left), and fire department chief Christian Kromberg inspect the burnt-out residential complex © Stephan Witte/KDF-TV/DPA
Mayor Thomas Kufen (CDU) was also relieved in view of the huge dimensions of the fire that apparently nobody died – “thanks to the efforts of the neighbors, but also to the forces of our fire brigade and rescue service”. He is very proud of that. That is “not a matter of course with this fire of this magnitude”. No one is missing, three injured people came to the hospital with smoke inhalation.
“Upon arrival, many residents of the 50 residential units were able to leave their apartments on their own. Because many apartments are equipped with smoke detectors, they were warned early on,” fire department spokesman Christoph Riss told RTL reporter Ulrich Klose. “Basically, these fire alarms are lifesavers and we are cautiously optimistic that it worked the same way here.”