With a large contingent, the Berlin fire brigade responded to a fire in a home for homeless people in Berlin-Kreuzberg on Sunday.
According to a fire department spokesman, 40 boxes of hygiene items caught fire in the basement of the eleven-story building. At first it was not known why.
The fire brigade had up to 90 emergency services with around a dozen vehicles come to the scene of the fire. According to the spokesman, they managed to extinguish the fire relatively quickly.
The fire brigade then started ventilation measures in the building. Because the smoke from the basement had spread over the stairwell and also reached some of the apartments in the dormitory.
At least ten residents were then medically examined in a bus. According to the initial findings of the operations management, no one was seriously injured.
According to the fire department, the residents of the lower floors left the building on their own after the fire alarm. People on the upper floors initially stayed in their rooms because of the increasing smoke in the house. Some were later brought to safety by emergency services with the help of smoke masks.
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“Suddenly everything started to beep,” a resident of a dpa reporter on site described the moment when the smoke detectors in the dormitory went off. “Everyone was yelling: Fire!” she reported. On the lower floors, in the stairwell and in the corridors, there was hardly anything to be seen because of the smoke.
According to the fire department spokesman, the rooms in the dormitory are still habitable after ventilation. Nobody would have to move to alternative accommodation.