April 22, 2023 – 10:45 PM
Flaming pizza on the restaurant’s website – Source: Burrocanaglia
Two people died and 12 were injured in a Madrid restaurant fire, caused by a waiter trying to light a pizza and accidentally setting fire to the decor. One of the dead was an employee of the restaurant and the other was a guest, the city’s mayor said, adding that one person was being treated in hospital in critical condition, along with five others who were seriously injured.
Speaking to the press outside the Madrid restaurant, the mayor said that, according to investigations, the fire started when
One of the waiters wanted to set the pizza on fire, and the flames spread almost instantly to the plastic flowers adorning the restaurant’s columns and then to the ceiling.
According to eyewitnesses, the waiter poured alcohol on the pizza he was holding in his hand, then on the pizza, and set it on fire with a flamethrower. The plate was burning with enormous flames, and the plastic flowers caught fire in an instant.
There were about 30 guests and staff in the restaurant, and fortunately, firefighters quickly arrived at the scene, as it was only a few hundred meters away from their barracks, and managed to extinguish the fire within ten minutes of the alarm. According to the mayor, a delay of a few minutes would have caused more casualties due to the fire and thick smoke. The police opened an investigation into the incident.
According to Spanish regulations, the ceilings and walls of “protected avenues” in restaurants must be covered with fire-resistant materials. A protected road is a road that leads to a “safe outdoor site or fully protected area”. The only way out of the restaurant in question was through the main entrance, because there used to be an old emergency exit, but it led to a closed passage. According to the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, they are still investigating whether the restaurant meets all technical regulations, but he confirmed that based on the size of the restaurant and the number of guests, the presence of an emergency exit was not. Is mandatory.
