France, Alsace fire: holiday home substandard

A holiday home in Alsace, eastern France, where 11 people were killed in a fire yesterday, did not meet fire safety standards for a facility of this type. Says this assistant prosecutor of the city of Colmar Natalie Kilwasser. “The premises did not pass mandatory security checks” and “did not have the necessary characteristics to accommodate the population.”

Fire

France is wondering what caused the fire that broke out yesterday morning at the summer center for the mentally retarded in Winzenheim. It is the country’s worst disaster since the 2016 Rouen cafe fire that killed 14 people. The 11 victims of yesterday were found in the rubble at the top of the building and in the collapsed mezzanine and identified thanks to a drone and the help of dogs. Firefighters were alerted around 6.30 am and were able to quickly put out the flames that engulfed the building, located in the village of La Forge near the border with Germany. “My thoughts go out to the victims, the wounded, their loved ones,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote in X, while Prime Minister Elisabeth Born, who arrived in Winzenheim, spoke of the “terrifying tragedy”, specifying that she was there to provide “support to the families victims, as well as the emergency and security services that intervened promptly.”