A blue light lights up on the roof of a fire brigade vehicle. © David Inderlied/dpa/Symbolbild
There were dramatic scenes at night during a fire in Berlin. People jumped out of a house.
Berlin - In a large fire in an apartment building in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, two people jumped out of the burning apartment and injured themselves critically. One of them had to be resuscitated on Tuesday night, according to a spokesman for the fire department. A total of eight people were injured, some of whom suffered smoke inhalation.
The fire broke out in the middle of the night in an apartment on the first floor of a six-storey apartment building on Aachener Straße. It also spread to the apartments above. More than 140 firefighters were deployed.
It was not yet known who the two people who jumped out before the arrival of the fire brigade were. A neighbor from the ground floor provided assistance with a ladder, according to the fire department. The man noticed two people on the balcony of the burning apartment and hired a ladder to the rescue.
The fire brigade brought two seriously injured people from the second floor of the house. Four others were also seriously injured and rescued from the smoky stairwell. Firefighters brought them out of the house with so-called fire escape hoods.
Whether they lived in the burning apartments or other parts of the house was not known at first. The fire brigade always appeals for residents of a burning apartment to go out as soon as possible. However, everyone else should stay in their respective homes, lock doors and windows and wait for the fire brigade.
The injured were taken to a hospital. Many other tenants had become aware of the fire through smoke detectors and had left the house in time. Around 30 residents were cared for in a bus provided. The extinguishing work continued in the morning. It is still unclear how the fire started. Dpa
