MADRID (AFP) — A fire killed 10 people on Friday in a home for the elderly and people with mental health issues in northeastern Spain, officials said.
A senior firefighter said a fire door had prevented the blaze from spreading, and one regional official praised the fast reaction of care home staff in evacuating residents.
A senior figure at the group running the home said the fire had probably been started by someone smoking,
Another two people were critically injured in the fire.
The fire, at the Jardines de Villafranca residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro, broke out in the early hours of the morning, said the emergency services for the Aragon region on X.
There were 69 residents and two workers inside at the time, revising downward an early figure of 82 people inside.
Firefighters were able to quickly bring the fire under control. They blamed smoke inhalation for the deaths.
The fire had been concentrated in one room thanks to a security door, but smoke spread throughout the residence, Volga Ramirez Gamiz, the mayor of the town told reporters.
“There was a lot of smoke, outside too, you couldn’t even breathe,” she said, explaining that she had rushed to the home with her husband to help with the evacuations.
“We got everyone out who was alive before the fire brigade arrived,” she added. “Only the dead were left inside.”
The 57 residents who survived and were uninjured were taken to another care home.
‘Caught in the smoke’
The facility was opened in 2008 as a home for the elderly, but recently had started taking in people with mental health problems.
Many of the residents had “mobility problems,” which made it difficult to evacuate them quickly, said Gamiz.
All of the victims were residents of the facility, said head of the Aragon government, Jorge Azcon who declared a day of mourning.
“I think that the two workers at the residence heard the alarm and acted — I think they did an extraordinary job,” he added.
Eduardo Sanchez, firefighter chief from the nearby city of Zaragoza, told reporters many of the residents “were in bed, unable to move. They were caught in the smoke.”
But half of the building was spared the fire thanks to a fire door, he added.
Investigators are still looking at what might have caused the fire, but the director of the association running the residence, Paquita Morata, said “it was probably caused by someone smoking in a room.”
Staffing issues
Angel Victor Torres, minister in charge of cooperation with Spain’s regions, suggested a lack of staff at the residence at the time of the blaze might have played a role in the death toll.
It is important “that the residences have a different format, and undoubtedly these are issues that should also make us all think and reconsider,” he told Spanish public television.
“Undoubtedly what we cannot have is cutbacks when talking about the elderly, because … they have difficulty in any situation to be able to move.”
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he was “shocked by the tragedy,” wishing the injured a speedy recovery.
Spain has suffered other deadly fires in nursing homes in recent years.
In February 2024, three people were killed by fire in a nursing home in Madrid, and in January 2022 another nine people died in a nursing home in Moncada, in the eastern region of Valencia.
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By DANIEL SILVA Agence France-Presse