A fire broke out in an eight-story high-rise building in Gelsenkirchen-Beckhausen on Wednesday morning. The fire is said to have broken out on the ground floor in the apartment of a 60-year-old. The resident is said to be a messie who is said to have kept thousands of newspapers in his apartment, as reported by several media. A neighbor told RTL that he had a fan heater in the apartment. “He’s said to have been on and near the newspapers. It’s logical that something like this would happen at some point,” she adds.
Other neighbors are said to have seen the 60-year-old standing in front of the house with a packed bag at four in the morning during the fire and watching the blazing flames. According to media reports, there was an eviction action against him, which was to be carried out the following day.
All residents of the high-rise were rescued from the building in a timely manner. One was particularly lucky because she initially didn’t notice anything about the fire. She only woke up when her parrot Coco raised an alarm at around four in the morning. “If my parrot hadn’t woken me up, I wouldn’t be standing here anymore,” she says. “Because I’m severely asthmatic, that was really bad.”
The fire brigade rescued about 20 other people from the building, six of them using a turntable ladder. 17 residents were temporarily accommodated in a bus. Four other people were hospitalized with smoke inhalation.
The extinguishing work on the high-rise dragged on until midday. The fire brigade then had to struggle to get the so-called burnt goods out of the 60-year-old resident’s apartment. It is said to have been presented in such a way that it made extinguishing work more difficult. A spokesman for the fire department said: “We have not seen anything like it.” A total of around 80 firefighters were involved in the operation.
Sources: WDR, RTL
