Fire at Grensen no. 17 in Central Oslo: Control Gained After Heavy Black Smoke Billows from Roof Terrace

Heavy black smoke billowed from a roof terrace at Grensen no. 17 in central Oslo at around 6pm. At 19.44 the fire service had gained control of the fire.

The police received a report about the fire at 6 p.m. From the ground, open flames were easily visible. Thick, black smoke billowed up. The police closed off a large area at the intersection of Grensen and Akersgata. Residents and others in the area were asked to remove the smoke, close windows and turn off ventilation systems.

At 19.44 the police sign on Twitter that the fire must be under control. But that extinguishing is still in progress.

– I can confirm that we have control, says duty commander Lars Lindal at the Oslo fire service shortly after 8:00 p.m.

The fire brigade was still working at the scene. Both up on the roof and down on the floors to prevent the water that has been used from causing unnecessary damage.

It has not been reported that any people have been injured.

There was a fire in a large roof terrace

Lindal says that there is a larger roof terrace in Grensen 17 that has been on fire.

– Were there people on the roof when the fire started?

– We don’t know that, says Lindal.

The police announced shortly after 8:00 p.m. that they do not know the cause of the fire. It may take until Monday morning before police investigators can get on the roof to carry out investigations.

The police also do not know if there were people up on the roof terrace when the fire started.

– This is something we have to get back to, says operations manager Alexander Østerhaug.

Has recently improved the roof terrace

It is the media agency Spoon that usually uses the roof terrace.

The agency’s manager, Siv Solfjeld, says there was no event on the roof terrace on Sunday. It is also not rented out to others.

Solfjeld states that she has been in contact with the employees who visited the office on Sunday. She says they are all safe.

According to the Planning and Building Agency in Oslo, the roof terrace was finally approved on 15 May this year. Upgrades had been made to the roof terrace recently.

The roof was on fire

It was shortly after 18:00 that the police received information about the incident.

There is dust rising from the ceiling. It was on fire from the roof up. The smoke spread to Grensen 19, which is a hotel. The hotel was evacuated.

– We are now continuing to see whether the construction is concrete or wood, which means that it could have spread further, said police task leader Anders Rønning.

He says that there is extensive damage to the roof of the building. Work is now underway to investigate whether there is damage on several floors down in the building.

It burned heavily at 18:00 on Sunday.

The fire brigade arrived with a crane.

Firefighters started extinguishing from the crane truck and from the roof itself.

At 18.45 it appeared that the fire was decreasing in intensity.

The crowd cheered

There are no registered residents at the address. The building is probably only used as commercial property.

To extinguish the fire, the fire brigade climbed onto the roof. They tried with a ladder truck from both the west and east sides. In the end, they stood on the roof itself and extinguished it with a hose, Aftenposten’s reporter on a nearby roof could observe.

Just after 18.30, white smoke came from the fire scene, as a clear sign that the extinguishing had started.

It triggered spontaneous cheers from the many hundreds of people who had gathered in the city center streets to watch what happened.

Operations leader Anders Rynning states that there were some challenges in connection with the extinguishing.

– The fire brigade initially had problems getting to the fire. Because of the subway and the tram, which have their catenary lines where they should have their height equipment and ladder trucks, says Rynning.

The call from the police on Sunday evening was for the population to avoid breathing in the smoke from the fire. Work will continue on the roof for a long time, including extinguishing.

– And we have to get those catenary lines up for the tram, said Rynning, and added:

– There will be roadblocks for quite some time to come.