A fire that broke out early on Thursday morning in a building in Valencia has left eleven people suffering from smoke inhalation, according to the Emergency Information and Coordination Centre (Cicu), with three of them admitted to the city’s Clinical Hospital, including an 11-year-old boy.
Several residents of the building had been trapped in their homes, so the firefighters had to carry out evacuation tasks using the stairs to reach the upper floors, from where they rescued one resident from across a balcony.
The events took place a few minutes after 6.30 am on Thursday when the fire that broke out on the third floor, the origin of which appears to be the faulty battery of an electric scooter that was being charged, trapping several residents of the affected building. The firefighters deployed a ladder to get out all the people who were trapped in the building and whose homes were affected by the fire. One of the residents in the building has had to be evacuated via a neighbouring terrace.
The calls to the emergency services quickly dispatched several fire appliances, Valencia Local Police, three SAMU units, three Basic Vital Services and two conventional ambulances to the scene, which provided medical attention to at least eleven people who had been affected by smoke inhalation.
The batteries of electric scooters have been the origin of numerous fires. The last major fire caused by these devices, took place last April when the flames destroyed five industrial warehouses owned by the Valencian company Cecotec in Sollana.
