Yle<\/a> that the fire appears to have started during barbecue use on the balcony of an apartment occupied by two elderly residents. One resident is suspected of causing the fire through negligence. The case is under preliminary investigation as aggravated endangerment, according to police incident commander Minna Rintam\u00e4ki, speaking to Yle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No injuries were reported. Emergency medical staff checked two people at the scene but did not send anyone to hospital.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The fire spread from the balcony into concealed roof structures through what rescue officials described as a ventilation gap or cavity inside the building. Flames then travelled rapidly beneath the roof.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Duty fire officer Toni Kannikoski told Finnish media that the speed of the spread was unusual given the height of the building, which has seven to eight storeys.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is strange how the fire managed to reach the roof,\u201d Kannikoski said. He said the blaze moved through hidden structures \u201csurprisingly fast\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Images from the scene showed flames breaking through the roof while black smoke rose above eastern Helsinki. Metro passengers travelling through Kalasatama received warnings about smoke near the station during the evening.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Around 30 rescue units took part in the operation. Firefighters spent hours cutting into roof sections to stop the spread. Active firefighting ended during the early hours of Sunday morning, after crews brought the blaze under control and moved into monitoring operations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rescue officials said the roof structures suffered severe fire damage. Water used during firefighting flowed through the building and caused damage to apartments on lower floors. Smoke damage affected upper storeys.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Residents from the top floors were evacuated during the operation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rescue services confirmed on Sunday morning that their operation had ended and repair work could begin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
HT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fire that started on a fourth-floor balcony spread through the roof of an apartment building in Helsinki\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[87],"tags":[47958,47954,158,47956,113,31178,47957,47953,47955,47959],"class_list":["post-91044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-helsinki","tag-aggravated-endangerment-investigation","tag-balcony-barbecue-fire","tag-finland","tag-finland-apartment-block-blaze","tag-helsinki","tag-helsinki-fire","tag-helsinki-rescue-services","tag-kalasatama-apartment-fire","tag-leonkatu-fire","tag-roof-fire-helsinki"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116629218682663453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}