Suddenly the fire alarm goes off in the De Leyhoeve residential care center in Tilburg at the end of Saturday afternoon. The chef presses the alarm button, after which the emergency services respond in a big way. A very large fire with serious injuries, the Safety Region quickly says. According to building owner Jac van Melick, in the end it wasn’t too bad. He looks back on the evening a day later.
Van Melick is general manager of the Bonita Group, the owner of the residential care center that contains 285 apartments. He soon heard about the fire alarm on Saturday evening and immediately went to the building.
“I heard that our chef immediately ran to the second floor after pressing the alarm button. There was smoke there. He and a care worker knocked on the doors of the apartments. There they told the residents: you have to go outside.”
“They suffered smoke inhalation during the evacuation and were checked in the ambulance.”
These are people who are elderly, but still live independently. Other homes are also quickly evacuated. About two hundred residents are standing outside a little later. They can go to the nearby Van der Valk Hotel, which will immediately come to the rescue.
Due to the large evacuation, the Central and West Brabant Safety Region quickly scales up to a very large fire. Van Melick is happy that the situation was taken so seriously. “It’s nice that it was tackled on a grand scale. But afterwards it turned out that one meter cupboard had caught fire. And that fire was quickly extinguished.”
“I expect that we will be able to release the apartments again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow at the latest.”
Several serious and minor injuries are also reported. “As far as I know, two people were identified as injured: the chef and healthcare worker,” says Van Melick. “They had inhaled smoke during the evacuation and were checked in the ambulance. They were soon allowed to go.”
After extinguishing the fire, the fire brigade carries out checks to check whether the building is accessible again. That is largely the case, and a large proportion of residents are allowed to return in the evening. Another part of the residents has to sleep somewhere else at night. Their apartments should be checked again on Sunday to be sure.
After these checks, the residents of 64 homes receive the good news that they can go home again on Sunday evening. It will not be possible to sleep in sixteen homes next night.
“We often rehearse evacuations, and it now appears that we are doing the right thing.”
According to Van Melick, this is due to two reasons. Nine of those homes still need to be cleaned, the building owner says. He expects the apartments to be released tomorrow or the day after tomorrow at the latest.
Things are more complicated for the seven other homes. One of these homes is the apartment where the meter cupboard caught fire. The six other apartments are on the same group as this meter cupboard.
“Replacing a meter cupboard should be possible quickly, but all pipes around it must be checked and possibly replaced. That could take weeks. We are still looking at whether we can temporarily divert the power for the six other apartments, so that those residents can return home more quickly. But we don’t know that yet.”
A hectic weekend for the residents and employees. Van Melick especially praises the quick help from Van der Valk and the actions of the De Leyhoeve staff. “We often rehearse evacuations, and it now appears that we are doing the right thing.”
You can read all the stories about it here the fire in the De Leyhoeve residential care center in Tilburg.
Would you like to say something about this story? Send us your message by e-mail or reach us guaranteed anonymously via Publeaks.