A fire broke out in a shop on Tuesday night. There was so much smoke that the fire department evacuated the apartment above. Three people were taken to hospital.
Firefighters and rescue services rushed to a major operation in Vienna’s Favoriten district on the night of Tuesday. A fire had started in a shop in Senefeldergasse at around 3 a.m. The fire produced such thick smoke that the people in the apartments above could hardly breathe. The Vienna fire service had to bring 46 people out of the building to safety. The Vienna rescue service treated everyone. Two pregnant women and a child had to be taken to hospital.
The cause of the fire is still unclear, but it started on the ground floor. As a result, the stairwell and the apartments above the business premises were so full of smoke that the residents went to the windows, says fire department spokesman Gerald Schimpf. Since some people panicked, the fire department decided to evacuate. 30 people were rescued via the stairwell with escape filter masks, seven people via an extension ladder and nine people via a turntable ladder.
All residents were handed over to the emergency services’ special operations team, which provided the rescued people with oxygen. Three people – the two pregnant women and the child – had to be taken to hospital with suspected mild smoke poisoning, said spokeswoman Corina Had. (APA)
