About 70 persons were evacuated from a large apartment building on Avenue du Pentathlon in Evere, Brussels, after a fire broke out there on Wednesday afternoon, Fire Service Spokesman Walter Derieuw said.
Three firefighters were injured, according to Derieuw. One sustained second-degree burns to his calves and had to be hospitalised. The two others suffered minor injuries from debris that fell on them.
The fire broke out just after 5 PM. When the fire service arrived, it was raging in an apartment on the fourth floor. It then spread to the fifth and sixth floors through the front of the building.
Residents spontaneously began to evacuate the premises when smoke detectors went off. Police and firefighters supervised their exit, and no one needed to be rescued.
“We prevented the fire from spreading higher thanks to the ladder vehicles,” Derieuw explained. “The prevention system and active firefighting worked very well in the building. The fire doors and smoke detectors were useful. We were also able to use the standpipe to train our fire hoses on the interior.”
However, the current high temperatures made working conditions more difficult for the firefighters, the spokesman added.
A total of nine apartments are now uninhabitable. The residents were taken care of by the municipal services and a bus from the Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company (STIB) was made available for their evacuation.
The cause of the fire is yet to be determined.
