Window cleaner Remco de Beer from Tilburg saved the lives of his two neighbors in the back thanks to his cold-blooded action on Tuesday when their house was ablaze. He managed to get the man and woman out of the bedroom by putting his ladder against the burning house and climbing up. “They were completely in shock and covered in soot.”
It was still early, just after six o’clock, when 42-year-old Remco was startled awake by some loud bangs. He looked out the window and saw huge flames coming from his neighbors’ backyard. Two houses were on fire.
“Within about ten seconds everything was on fire,” he says, shocked. “I immediately woke up my family and we went outside with our dogs. I was afraid the fire would spread to my house, because our barns are adjacent.”
“We started banging on all kinds of doors to wake up the residents.”
Remco then ran with his daughter and a neighbor to the Bresemstraat where the fire was raging. “We started banging on all kinds of doors and windows to wake up the residents. Everyone was still asleep,” he says.
A woman was hanging out of the window of one of the burning houses, Remco noticed. “There was a small staircase, but she couldn’t get out with it.” The Tilburger didn’t think twice, grabbed his window-cleaner’s ladder, put it against the wall of the burning house and climbed up.
“The woman was quite panicked, she was completely black from the soot.”
“The woman was quite panicked, she was completely black because of the soot. After I helped her out, it turned out that another man was trapped in the bedroom. With the help of another boy, we also got him out. .”
Not long after, the fire brigade arrived. The two victims were taken to hospital by ambulance for smoke inhalation. One dog did not survive the fire. The explosions and flare-ups are believed to have been caused by gas cylinders in one of the backyards.
The fire brigade fought the fire and also removed the roof tiles to extinguish the fire under the roof. Despite this, it could not be prevented that the two houses were completely destroyed.
Remco just went to work after his heroic campaign. “But when I was in the car, my legs started to get heavy and I only realized how bad the situation was.” He has decided to stop a little earlier this afternoon. “Then I can recover from all the panic.”
This is what the fire in the Bresemstraat looked like on Tuesday morning:
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