After a fire in a high-rise building in Mindelheim, 60 people are initially unable to return to their apartments – and there is a great willingness to help in the city. Mayor Stephan Winter cannot emphasize this often enough in a conversation. Two days after the fire, he reported that everyone had now found temporary accommodation. “There were a lot of offers of help,” he says.
In this situation, the town hall sees itself as the central coordination point. “We help where we can,” says Winter. The city had bought Christmas presents for the children and these were to be presented on Thursday afternoon. To create “a little piece of normality”. There will be a Christmas party in the youth center on Friday. People are also warmly invited to this. And a restaurateur offered to cook a Christmas menu for those affected. “In this way, people will experience a feeling of Christmas despite everything,” hopes Winter.
He was personally there the morning after the fire and spoke to the people. They were shocked, but felt they were in good hands and looked after, says Winter. He was very happy about the physical integrity of the residents. The five people who were taken to the hospital have now also been discharged.
The house is now being examined by experts. Winter hopes that they will then open it up enough for people to pick up important items. Otherwise, the first priority is “for people to calm down,” says Winter. Older people were accommodated in a retirement home, some lived in a hotel, others in holiday apartments. In addition, the Dominikus-Ringeisen-Werk, a large facility for people with disabilities in Ursberg (Günzburg district), made ten rooms available. And the owner of a residential complex got in touch.
He made his new building available for more than 20 people and immediately took the initiative and bought furniture and furnishings, says Winter gratefully. He assumes that the first accommodation is not a permanent solution. We will soon have to look at how people can be redistributed into apartments. Renovation will probably take a long time. But that’s something for the new year. Now it’s Christmas.
According to initial investigations, the fire in the nine-story high-rise was started early Tuesday morning by the battery of an e-scooter that exploded on the fifth floor, leaving five people slightly injured. The building is initially uninhabitable due to the consequences of the smoke caused by the fire and the damage caused by the water used to extinguish the fire.