Thirty people were evacuated, and another resident was rescued using a breathing mask — such were the serious consequences of the fire that occurred over the weekend in one of the five-story buildings in Bolderaja. How did the residents escape and what is known about the cause of the incident?
On Sturmanu Street, residents are keeping their windows open for ventilation, as the smell of smoke from the fire on Saturday night has still not dissipated, reports the show Degpunktā (TV3).
The flames in the basement flared up at the most inopportune time — shortly before 3 a.m., when everyone was sound asleep.
Second-floor resident Nina was awakened by the smoke detector, which is usually placed on a shelf but should be mounted on the ceiling. During the fire, the battery was removed from it, which the woman is now trying to put back in.
Nina emphasizes — it’s good that the detector worked as it should. Smell is dulled during sleep, and the threat of suffocation was real. Firefighters also came to help her and her husband:
"My husband is disabled. I was dragging a wheelchair there. The firefighters were very polite, they helped with everything, ran in, opened the windows: ‘come out, come out faster!’ Of course, there was white smoke. We were sleeping so soundly that we didn’t even feel it."
Residents of house No. 5 on Sturmanu Street note that the basement is almost always tightly closed, and outsiders cannot get in. Nevertheless, there is a version being considered that the basement could have been set on fire by homeless people. It is also not ruled out that the fire was brought in from outside.
The apartment on the first floor suffered the most. At that moment, a young woman was in the room. Her boyfriend was at work when he received the emergency message.
"Neighbors were coming out, they knocked on the door, she came out, and everything was smoky here. (DP: Was the floor on fire?) Part of the kitchen burned out. Where the pipes are, where the heating runs, there are large Soviet pipes, they were cutting holes there. That’s where the fire started, and the floor caught fire," said first-floor resident Maxim.
Unfortunately, the young couple's apartment was not insured, and they will have to make repairs on their own and at their own expense, hoping that the police will manage to identify the culprit and recover damages from them.
