In March this year, a large fire occurred in the southern hospital area in Ängelholm. 39 elderly people had to be evacuated and parts of the building were destroyed to the value of SEK 100 million.
Two young men have been convicted of starting the fire that started at the HVB home in the area. The Skåne Northwest rescue service has carried out an investigation after the fire, which is now complete.
The extinguishing work was delayed
In the report, it is described that the first unit arrived on the scene five minutes after the alarm went off and began the extinguishing work.
But it had to be interrupted because there were reports that there were people still in the building, night staff who had not woken up immediately by the alarm. Instead, a life-saving operation was started but the night staff had already got out.
– After that, we could continue with the extinguishing work and by then it had spread to the roof structure. The fire spread in three different directions and it spread quickly, says Emma Nordwall, federal director of the Skåne Northwest Rescue Service.
The reason why the staff did not wake up immediately has not been determined.
The roof structure made the work difficult
The rescue service notes that the construction of the roof on the building made it difficult to contain the fire. The construction was old and it is stated in the report that the weak points were not noticed by either the property owner, consultants or during the supervision of the rescue service.
A lesson learned from this is to look at constructions when inspecting similar buildings in the future.
SVT Nyheter Helsingborg has previously reported on a nurse who worked at night, in a business that provides advanced care for the seriously ill at home, who did not hear a fire alarm – even though she saw that there was a fire on the roof.
But an investigation shows that there was nothing wrong with the alarm.
– The automatic alarm sounds in the sections that are affected and it has gradually worked. We haven’t been able to prove that there was actually a fire in that part, Emma Nordwall, federal director of the Skåne Northwest Rescue Service.
See the devastation after the big fire in Ängelholm from above