Fire in Schagen
The fire brigade is present again, the fire hoses are rolled out again and two firefighters are still extinguishing the mountain of charred material from one of the burnt down buildings. In the night from Monday to Tuesday the fire flared up again around 02.15. A bystander was just about to open the bedroom window last night when a cloud of smoke came towards her. ”I closed the window again immediately and I knew straight away that something was wrong again. It could only be that the fire from yesterday had flared up again.” Liander is also present to record the situation.
‘Leave everything and get away’
An employee of an Intercity, a few buildings further down, tells how she heard the story from her colleague on Monday afternoon. ”I wasn’t there myself, but my colleague didn’t sleep well last night. This is really her second home, she lives nearby. She came back last night to see how things were going and she also came by again this morning. She is really scared. We were very afraid that the fire would spread to even more shops.” The police came to warn the saleswomen yesterday when the fire broke out. ”We had to go outside through the emergency exit. Leave everything behind, close the shop and get out. You can still smell the smoke a little bit in here.” An employee of a drugstore is also still clearly scared. ”We were terrified that even more shops would be hit by the fire. It spread so quickly. It’s terrible that two have been lost.” The drugstore also had to close its doors on Monday afternoon. “Everyone had to leave, we were scared to death.”
Shoeby and Mobiel Fix Shop destroyed
Both the premises of the telephone shop Mobiel Fix Shop and the adjacent premises of the clothing shop Shoeby were razed to the ground by the fire. The fire broke out in the telephone shop around 16:00 on Monday afternoon and quickly spread. A bystander who was also there on Monday says that the fire developed and spread quickly. ”It started with thick black clouds of smoke that we saw from a distance. We walked in the area and when we got here, the fire brigade was already there with a lot of manpower. There were units from Wieringerwaard, Langedijk, Warmenhuizen and Noord-Scharwoude, I think. At first we thought that the Chinese restaurant was on fire, but it turned out to be the telephone shop.” According to the woman who witnessed it up close yesterday, the owner of Mobiel Fix Shop did not notice the fire at first, because he was busy with customers. ”Someone from Brügemann-Deutekom warned him.” The woman has noticed that there have been a lot of fires in the area recently. “It’s getting really bad here lately. I think this is the fourth or fifth fire this year. I think that’s a lot and it seems to be getting worse and worse here lately.”
Research is ongoing
An investigation is currently underway into the exact cause of the fire. Initially, it was suspected that a cigarette butt was the culprit, but that turned out not to be the case. The investigation is continuing. The fire department cannot yet provide any information about this.
