First there is a fire on the roof, then an explosion follows: before the eyes of several residents, a fireball rises above a Berlin apartment building. Debris flies onto surrounding roofs, around 100 emergency services are on site.
The roof of an eight-storey house in Berlin caught fire on Wednesday evening. During the firefighting operation, a compressed gas tank on the house exploded and there was a fireball, said a fire department spokesman. There were no injuries.
The fire on and in the scaffolded building near Chausseestrasse in the Mitte district was extinguished in the evening. 100 emergency services were on site. It is the job of the police to determine the cause of the fire. The spokesman said there was reconstruction work going on at the house not far from the Dorotheenstadt cemetery. However, it is still inhabited. A local resident said there was roof work on the building.
It burned completely on the 300 square meter flat roof as well as on the eighth floor below, said the spokesman. The tenants on this floor had to leave their apartments. In the explosion, flying debris would have spread to the neighboring roofs. "We've checked them now," said the fire department spokesman. But above all, the emergency services on the ground were at risk. The police "cleared the sidewalks and streets of passers-by in an exemplary manner. Otherwise there would certainly have been injuries."
The explosion could also be heard several kilometers away from the fire in the Mitte district - for example at Plötzensee. Shortly after the fire broke out, the fire brigade announced on Twitter: "We receive a lot of calls." In the meantime, however, the fire has been extinguished again, according to another tweet. Four people were brought to safety, and apparently there were no injuries or deaths.
