“There were people screaming, desperate people who couldn't find their children and even an elderly person who fainted in front of me because he said he couldn't find his daughters and granddaughters.” “I tried to go out through the stairs and the smoke fell on me, I went down the elevator.” “All the neighbors were lying on the ground, crying, everything has burned.” These are some of the testimonies of the 143-unit building in València (with more than 350 tenants) that yesterday had to be evacuated hastily after a brutal fire and that at the last minute the death of at least four people was confirmed, according to emergency services. Valencia. For its part, the Valencia City Council confirmed that firefighters are searching for another 19 who are missing and whose relatives have not been able to locate since the fire started.
Late into the night, it was still active, despite the titanic struggle of the firefighters to try to put it out, cooling the façade. The characteristics of the building do not allow work on the extinction of its interior.
In a first assessment provided by the deputy general director of Emergencies of the Generalitat Valenciana, Jorge Suárez, there were 14 injured of varying degrees – six of them firefighters – who were transferred to different hospital centers in the city. In addition, hotel spaces were made available to accommodate residents who have lost their homes. “All the floors are charred,” Vicente, one of the affected neighbors, explained to La Vanguardia, who saw how the flames consumed what little was left of his house.
Municipal sources explained that the people who requested accommodation had already been relocated to hotels in the city and transferred on EMT buses, the public transportation company.
The fire started, for reasons that are still unknown, on the fifth floor of an 18-story building in the Valencian neighborhood of Campanar. The flames quickly spread throughout the homes and affected an adjacent 8-story building. According to Firefighters sources, a flammable material, polyurethane, present on the façade of the building, built 15 years ago, would have been the cause of the fire spreading so quickly. The strong gusts of west wind that blew yesterday Thursday in Valencia They also made it difficult to extinguish the flames that, despite the tenacity of the firefighters, were still active last night.
Ariadna, the administrator of the farm where the fire started, powerless and unable to avoid tears, explained to journalists that the fire spread “super fast.”
Despite the harsh images of a fire that engulfed the two buildings and left them reduced to a simple skeleton, during the afternoon there was a moment for hope. Firefighters managed to rescue a young couple surrounded by flames from a balcony. This man and this woman, who were caught inside the house by the start of the fire – it was 5:30 p.m. – remained for two hours on the balcony of their house while some firefighters, located a few meters away from them on a crane, They were putting out the flames that were burning around them with a hose.
Finally, with one of the cranes they managed to rescue them amidst the joyful applause of the neighbors and onlookers who watched the outcome astonished.
Given the magnitude of the fire, members of the Military Emergency Unit moved from the Bétera base, and 112 reported on social networks that the installation of a field hospital is planned.
“Whoever is a doctor raise their hand!” Up to thirty volunteer doctors came to work in the improvised hospital. Many of the doctors arrived on their own and others because of the call that was made to the health centers. In fact, the Ministry of Health reported that the critical and burn units of the Valencia hospitals were coordinating for possible action after the fire. Most of the injured people affected by smoke inhalation and burns of various degrees were transported to them.
Given the confusion of the first hours, the Local Police enabled the number 690167830 to assist the relatives of the people affected by the fire. The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, and the mayor of València, María José Catalá, went to the scene of the events, asking on social networks not to get close to the fire to facilitate the teams' tasks and avoid unnecessary risks. On the other hand, the Valencian council decreed three days of mourning and the suspension of La Crida de les Falles, for this Sunday.
