A child lost his life on Tuesday evening in the fire of a building in Liège, indicate the firefighters of Liège. The fire broke out around 8:30 p.m. in a dwelling located on the first floor of a general food store on rue Montagne Sainte-Walburge in Liège. A three-year-old child died in the fire. Fifteen firefighters responded. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
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This morning, on the spot, we meet the neighbor of the bereaved family. “I was in the kitchen, I heard an explosion on the first floor“, he says just before going to work. “I got out quickly, but I didn’t know how to do anything because it was too powerful, I had to call the fire department. The family had a child of about 3 and a half years old. My child is 4 years old, so I knew the family well. I only learned later that the child had died in the fire.“
Another neighbour, Annie, also recounts this terrible night. “I heard a lot of fire trucks and looked out the window I saw a building on fire. I did not know that a child had died in the fire. It’s a shock, I knew them well, the gentleman is very nice, I’m really sorry for them.”
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At noon, the neighborhood was still in shock. In the neighborhood, everyone knows what happened during the night. Christian had just parked on the street when he heard an explosion. He says, very moved. “I took my fire extinguisher and I went upstairs, I heard a child screaming, I came back, I tried to put out the fire but the flames came on me. The father and the mother were trying to save the child but it was not possible, the flames were too powerful…”
The fire actually caught on very quickly and devastated the entire floor of the building, below which the child’s parents had a small store. “It took on monstrous proportions, comments a neighbor. There was exaggerated smoke, I thought it was the building opposite that was burning but it was just the small store and when you imagine the products inside, you understand that there is all the time fuel.”
Firefighters confirm the violence of this fire. Emmnanuel Bellaire, spokesman for the firefighters of Liège, spoke about the tragedy. “To carry out the excavation, it was first necessary to stabilize the structure which had been weakened in part by the fire, it reveals that the fire was violent enough to create structural disorders in the building.”
The father of the deceased child is still in hospital.