Alarm in the middle of the night, between Saturday and Sunday, due to a fire that suddenly broke out in a semi-detached house in via Fratelli Bandiera in Mirandola, inhabited by three elderly people. The causes that sparked the flames are still being investigated by firefighters. A 77-year-old and two 80-year-olds were involved, who were intoxicated and promptly transported to Mirandola hospital: the fire broke out around 2.50 am, when the occupants had already been sleeping for some time. What woke them up was the intense smoke and the crackling of the first flames, which then alarmed the three elderly people. A young neighbor who was returning home noticed what was happening on the ground floor of the house. Fortunately, the timely intervention of the firefighters made it possible to save the three involved – all residents of the house from which the flames broke out – and evacuate the building. Help arrived immediately on site to transport the three elderly people, a woman and a man in their eighties, and another 77-year-old man, to hospital, who had been intoxicated due to smoking.
The eighty-year-old couple, having carried out the necessary tests, were discharged shortly afterwards. The seventy-seven-year-old, however, was kept for observation overnight and Sunday morning, only to be discharged in the early afternoon of the following day. Yesterday morning, along the street, the neighbors discussed what happened a few meters from their homes. “I know the three residents well but – the neighbor rewinds the tape – I didn’t realize what happened last night despite the sirens because I sleep in the back room”.
Someone else, however, woke up in the middle of the night and was able to notice the smoke and flames that last night enveloped the apartment on the ground floor of the house, making it uninhabitable.
“I was woken up by the firefighters who – recalls another resident in the house next door, at number 68 – invited me to remove the parked car as it was too close to the possible spread of the flames which, fortunately, the firefighters avoided. My father, when he was awake at that hour he saw the tongues of fire coming out of the window and followed the extinguishing operations from the balcony.” The police also intervened on site for the usual investigations.
Flavio VIani
