David and Ruth chose this Friday the 21st to celebrate her birthday.
21 years.
They are an ex-partner who gets along so well that she continues to share this day.
Around a quarter to 11 at night, they saw a waiter pass by her with a “plate on fire” that she thought was meat and he thought it was a pizza and a blowtorch in the other hand.
Just a few seconds later, the Burro Canaglia establishment, in the Manuel Becerra square in Madrid, was on fire.
The first investigations suggest that this plate brushed against the plastic plant decoration that was in the premises and caught fire at full speed.
So much so that the ferocity of the flames caused two deaths and 12 injuries, eight of whom are still hospitalized.
According to current municipal regulations, there are serious restrictions when it comes to using flammable material on ceilings and walls.
Municipal sources assure EL PAÍS that the premises had a "license in order" and that the decorative elements must comply with what is included in the technical building code and with the fire protection ordinance.
"What happened has to be investigated," they add.
Specifically, the ordinance states that the roofs and walls of "protected paths" must have "non-flammable combustible materials".
A protected route is defined as that which leads “to safe outer space or to a zero-risk sector”.
In this case, the only way to the exit was through the main door, because there was an old emergency door that leads to a portal, but it was sealed.
The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, has assured this Saturday that it is still being investigated whether the restaurant met all the technical requirements, but he can confirm that "due to the size and number of diners" it was not mandatory for it to have Emergency exit.
He has also assured that there were about thirty people inside, including customers and workers.
Facade of the local burned down, the day after the tragedy.
The premises, inaugurated in January 2022, are a franchisee of the Sevillian group Burro Canaglia.
Leading this project are Jesús Laborda, Sira Farfán, Joaquín Domínguez and Socorro Pérez.
The four have been the public face of this gastronomic proposal with which they aspired to become a "new benchmark for Italian restaurants at a national level", according to their own words to
Diario de Sevilla
a year ago.
The managers of the franchise in the capital have approached the premises this Saturday morning and have begun to collaborate with the scientific police, who have already assumed the investigation of what happened.
For the moment, they have preferred not to speak and have argued that, for now, they do not have much more information.
They have simply slipped that they still do not know if the origin of the fire was one of the pizzas or one of the special desserts, which also have elements of fire.
On the group's social networks, you can see several videos and photographs of the Inferno Carnívora pizza, which is served on flames that are lit with a blowtorch, something that agrees with the witness statements collected by this newspaper.
The group has published a message on its Instagram account this Saturday in which it assures that it is "deeply moved" by the deaths and extends its most "sincere condolences."
This newspaper has contacted the company without obtaining a response.
Image of a flambéed pizza served by restaurants in Burro Canaglia, in a photo on their website.
The group announced at the beginning of last year its intention to take a leap in its growth, and they met their goal because in a blog post they defined 2022 as "the year of the rogue revolution."
In this text from their corporate website, they detail that in the last 12 months they had billed "more than 15 million euros, doubling the figures of last 2021" and that there were already 18 restaurants in eight cities.
In an interview they declared that the group advocates "personalization in all senses, also aesthetically".
Precisely, the profuse floral decoration of plastic material is one of the hallmarks of the restaurants of the business group.
So much so that in September 2020 they won the Hot Concepts awards in the Best Design category of the self-styled restoration Oscars.
In this category, the aesthetic aspect of the premises is valued and interior design studies can also attend.
Manuel Becerra's establishment was L-shaped and the kitchen was in the background.
The restaurant is located just 100 meters from a fire station.
Just a few minutes after the fire started, a citizen came running to alert them and a part of them went on foot to the fire.
At 11:01 p.m., when the first alert call came in, the firefighters were already rescuing victims.
At 11:10 p.m., the head of the operation announced that the fire had been extinguished.
In those 10 minutes the tragedy occurred.
One of the deceased is a worker and the other, a client who was near the door, as explained by the mayor.
35 and 42 years old.
Ervigio Corral, manager on duty at Samur Social, pointed out this Saturday that if the emergency services had taken a little longer, the fire would have meant "the death of all the people who were inside".
Carlos Martín, chief of the fire brigade, barely slept between three in the morning, when he left the place of the fire on foot, and this Saturday, when the mayor visited the place of the tragedy.
The firefighter recalled that the most difficult area was the entrance, where the fire started, which caused many people to go inside.
“Some had the chance to hide in the kitchen, crouch down and wait, but the conditions were miserable for everyone.”
Several witnesses recounted on Friday night that they saw people come out "with burned skin" and also many others who had to be rescued.
The large sidewalk in front of the restaurant was filled with bodies surrounded by health workers who were doing everything possible to save their lives.
The entrance to the premises on Friday night, when the emergency operation ended.PP
A scorched armchair rests at the door of the premises as a reflection of what is still inside.
Through a crack in the door you can see the profuse blackened floral decoration on the floor.
Someone has left a bouquet of four lilac flowers on one of the tables on the restaurant's terrace, which was not affected by the fire.
David and Ruth are two of the survivors of this tragedy.
On a bench a few meters from the restaurant, she commented to him just a few minutes after the fire: “Do you realize what we have gotten rid of?”
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