By Dirk Böttger, Olaf Selchow and Maren Wittge
A 2,000 square meter warehouse was on fire on Tabbertstrasse early on Saturday morning. The heat was so intense that windows in neighboring houses were ripped out, cars were damaged and residents fled their homes.
Shortly after 2 a.m., Marcel L. (35) was awakened by a loud crack. When he looked out the window, the hall of a parquet manufacturer was already ablaze. He woke up his girlfriend.
“I alerted the fire department at 2:10 a.m.,” says the 35-year-old. Then he ran through the house and knocked on his neighbors’ doors and woke them up. Then all the residents ran outside. Some spent the night in hotels to be on the safe side.
A large contingent of firefighters arrived. “Among other things, four turntable ladders and four mobile water cannons were used,” said a fire department spokesman for the BZ
Firefighting water was taken from the Spree via three suction lines.
The flames rose meters high into the sky. Parts of the roof structure collapsed, putting the entire building in danger of collapsing. “That made it difficult to extinguish the fire,” the spokesman continued.
Due to the strong heat development, windows of the adjacent buildings were torn and parked cars were damaged.
By 4 a.m., the fire was under control to the extent that emergency services could rule out the possibility of it spreading to other buildings. The post-extinguishing work should last until Saturday night.