Firefighters injured in Dec. 25 apartment fire in Tallinn still in serious condition

TALLINN - The investigation into the circumstances of the fire that broke out in an apartment building in Uus-Maleva Street in Tallinn on Dec. 25 continues; the firefighters injured in the fire remain in hospital in a serious but stable condition.

On Dec. 25, a fire broke out at an Uus-Maleva Street address in North Tallinn, which claimed two lives and resulted in two firefighters being hospitalized in serious condition. It is known that a sudden ignition of combustion gases occurred in the apartment at the same time as the firefighters had found a person on the floor in a smoke-filled bedroom and were trying to salvage them. After the fire had been put out, the body of another person was found on a burned bed in the same apartment.

Investigators say that at this point, they cannot rule out either smoking or a faulty electrical appliance as the cause of the fire. Why the combustion gases ignited and the rescuers were trapped in the fire is still being investigated.

Combustion gases are a toxic mixture of substances released during a fire that would dissipate on their own in open air. However, when released indoors, the gases will fill the room. If a fire indoors has reached the point where it has used up all the oxygen in the room, it enters a so-called resting phase. If enough time passes, the gases will cool down and the fire will subside. However, if air is supplied to such a situation and the temperature of the combustion gases reaches 300 degrees Celsius, they can ignite.

All professional and volunteer rescuers in Estonia wear protective clothing that complies with the highest level of EN 469 protective clothing standard. Clothing of the same standard is worn by all rescue workers in the European Union. It was also worn by the rescuers who were seriously injured on Dec. 25, as well as by all the other professional and volunteer rescuers who took part in the event.

There are limits to the capacity of protective gear, however. If the temperature gets too high and stays high for too long, the laws of physics will eventually prevail. On that night, extreme conditions occurred that exceeded the limits of the protective clothing, but how such conditions came about is what investigators are looking into now.

Both the injured firefighters are experienced in their profession, with more than 1,000 minutes of smoke diving over the past four years between them.