Spain retirement home blaze leaves eight dead

MADRID: A fire swept through a retirement home early Sunday outside Spain’s northeastern city of Zaragoza, killing eight elderly residents and injuring 12 other people, the regional government officials said on Sunday.

“There are eight dead and 11 hurt, including two seriously from smoke inhalation,” a spokesman for the Aragon region government told AFP, adding that the cause of the fire was not yet known.
The area has for more than a week suffered from a heat wave. A fire between July 3 and 7 saw nearly 14,000 hectares burned in what was the country’s worst blaze since 2012.
Regional Interior Ministry spokesman Gustavo Alcalde said 11 residents of the Santa Fe home and one of its caretakers were hospitalized. He said the cause of the fire was being investigated.
One man with serious burns was in critical condition in the intensive care unit of a local hospital, regional health spokesman Sebastian Celeya said, adding the others were suffering from smoke inhalation.
The fire appears to have started in a first floor bedroom of the three-story building, fire brigade spokesman Carlos Carilla said. The fire department had received a phone call from a person asking for help in evacuating elderly people who said a mattress had caught on fire.
Celaya said the occupant of the bedroom where the fire looks to have started had died as well as a next-door neighbor, and those in bedrooms directly above died from smoke inhalation.
Alcalde praised the rapid response by fire and police officials but called it “a very sad day” in Zaragoza.
One person meanwhile has reportedly died of heat stroke and Madrid’s emergency service says it has seen 11 other cases in the last 24 hours as Spain swelters under a prolonged heat wave.
The voluntary emergency service Vost Andalucia says an elderly person died Saturday of suspected heat stroke in southwestern Seville.
The Madrid emergency service says two men, a 50-year-old cleaner and a 45-year-old, are both in critical condition Sunday with heat stroke in Madrid hospitals. The agency said its crews have been called out help with 144 cases of heat stroke since June 25.
Spain’s meteorological agency issued a warning Saturday saying temperatures would continue to be as high as 104 F (40 C) until at least July 16, describing the heat wave as “unusually long.”