Three people – mother, father and son – died and 4 were injured in the fire that broke out this evening in a garage in via Fra Galgario, in the Gambara area of Milan. The firefighters of the Milan command made this known, adding that the flames were put out and the fire contained, preventing it from spreading to the upper floors of the condominium. The victims – the firefighters said – were part of the same family and were in an apartment on the third floor of the building. The father – says the regional emergency emergency company of Lombardy – was 66 years old, the mother 63 and the son 34.
The number of injured people rises to 4: a 39-year-old man taken for burns under code yellow to the Polyclinic and three people (a 68-year-old woman, an elderly woman aged 89 and a man aged 56) taken under code green to hospitals Saint Joseph and Saint Charles.
The witness
“My dad was returning when the fire broke out and in a second the flames had engulfed the entire building”, says a boy who lives in the condominium on Via Fra Galgario.
Neighbors, in the street outside the evacuated building, say that the flames started from a car being repaired. In a few moments, then, they would have reached the entire building, whose façade is blackened by the fire. Eight fire brigade teams for a total of around fifty men intervened on site. The NIA (fire investigation unit) and the judicial police unit are also in action and will have to clarify the causes of the fire.
The investigation
The Milan prosecutor’s office will open a case for manslaughter, disaster and negligent fire. The owner of the workshop – as far as we know – will be entered in the register of suspects to guarantee him.
It was “an uncontrollable fire”, according to the deputy prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano, on the basis of the inspection carried out with the local police commander Marco Ciacci. The fire “probably started on a car that was being repaired. This, due to the petrol and the presence of highly flammable materials, triggered an uncontrollable fire, which probably affected other combustible material such as tyres, which consequently caused extraordinary smoke.” “From what I could see – said the deputy – from the blackening of the walls it is clear that there was an extraordinary load of fire, but the evaluation will have to be made by the experts. This is only the first image that we have had”.
The three victims “were unable to escape,” Siciliano added. “Fortunately, the apartments on the first and second floors were empty”, otherwise “it could have been an even greater misfortune”, observed the prosecutor.
