At about 19.00 pm Thursday, a fire alarm suddenly went off at a large apartment complex in Franslaan in Newport Bad. It is in the Santhooft C. complex, where there are dozens of apartments. There was also a burning smell on the fourth floor.
When the fire alarm rang, many residents had already left for their own safety. Then emergency services arrived in droves. Fire stations as well as police and an ambulance as a precaution. Then the fire brigade and police continued the evacuation. “A total of fifty residents were brought in and stood on the street,” Fire Lieutenant Rudy Palin of the Oostduinkerke site told Het Nieuwsblad. Then the fire service began looking for the cause. We discovered that the smell of burning and smoke was coming from an apartment on the fourth floor. When we rang the bell and knocked, no one answered. So we didn’t know if anyone was still inside the apartment. We didn’t notice any fire either.”
Hearing impaired man
“At that moment we had the choice of opening five doors or waiting for the building owner to arrive,” Palin continues. Finally the owner of the building managed to open the door and inside we found an old man who was very shocked by the sight of the firefighters.
Apparently, it was a hard-of-hearing man who had no hearing and left the pan burning in the fire. He had put it out himself to prevent the fire and opened a window. He did not even hear the sound of the fire alarm, the doorbell, or the fire department.” The intervention could then be completed quickly. Fifty residents were able to return inside within an hour.
