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Arson suspected in violent house fire

Police are treating a violent fire at a family home on the island of Orust in western Sweden as an act of arson.

Published: 6 October 2012 10:15 CEST
Arson suspected in violent house fire

Six people were in the house when the fire broke out on Friday night, but at least three managed to get out, according to local police. The other three are feared dead.

The house was completely destroyed in the fire.

On Saturday morning, local police had still not managed to search the premises and they had not been able to get in touch with the people living in the house.

Peter Adlersson, spokesperson for the police in the Västra Götaland County on the west coast of Sweden, said a number of people were taken in for questioning overnight.

He added that those questioned included witnesses but said he could not confirm whether they also included residents in the burnt-down house.

The scene of the suspected arson has been under police watch overnight and remained so on Saturday morning as the fire brigade continued its work to extinguish the fire and forensic investigators searched the scene fore clues.

Orust local government councillor, Hans Pernervik, told the TT news agency that he arrived at the scene at 8pm on Friday night. He described the fire as “completely out of control” and said locals feel shaken by the event.

“It was all burning like a torch. I didn’t know a house could burn like that,” another witness, a neighbour identified as Göran, told TT.

On Saturday morning smoke was still billowing out of the remains of the house. Hans Blohm, deputy chief of rescue operations on Orust, said he expects the fire to be fully extinguished by late Saturday morning.

According to the SOS Alarm centre an injured person who was outside the house when the fire broke out has been brought to a nearby hospital.

Eight people are registered at the address, but according to the police, who have spoken to the house owner, five of them do not live there.

TT/The Local/nr

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FIRE

Why have there been so many fires in Copenhagen this year?

Thursday’s fire at Denmark’s tax ministry follows a blaze at the historic Old Stock Exchange and several fires at the headquarters of pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk on the outskirts of Copenhagen.

Published: 27 June 2024 15:11 CEST
Why have there been so many fires in Copenhagen this year?

A fire broke out on Thursday morning on the roof of the building which houses Denmark’s Tax Ministry in central Copenhagen, which fire services in the capital were able to put out shortly afterwards.

The Tax Ministry fire is at least the fifth high-profile blaze in and around Copenhagen since April, following three at different buildings owned by pharma giant Novo Nordisk and the devastating fire which turned parts of the historic Old Stock Exchange (Børsen) to rubble.

The high number of fires occurring within a relatively short period appears to be down to no more than chance, Jens Kastvig, an expert with the Danish Society of Engineers said to newswire Ritzau.

“There’s always a risk that a fire can break out in a building,” Kastvig said, noting that the average annual fire rate is around one per 100,000 to 150,000 square metre of building.

“That could be anything from a smaller to a larger fire,” he said.

Kastvig said that he initially guessed the Tax Ministry fire was the result of renovation work.

Both Børsen and the Novo Nordisk buldings were also undergoing renovations at the time of their fires. This increases the risk of fire breaking out in a more flammable material such as bitumen waterproofing, or a fire otherwise related to the ongoing work.

No renovations were ongoing at the Tax Ministry however, the building’s owner ATP Ejendomme has confirmed.

“The fire services are busy at the moment. But I hope it’s a coincidence,” Kastvig said.

Tim Ole Sørensen of the Copenhagen Fire Service, Hovedstadens Beredskab, said on Thursday that there was no suggestion that the fires were related.

“There’s nothing that indicates any form of connection at all to us, and we are talking about very different businesses and types of building,” he said.

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