Two people were killed and ten others injured in a fire that broke out on Friday evening in Madrid, in a restaurant where a flambé dish was served, authorities and the press reported on Saturday citing witnesses.
The Samur Emergency Department in the Spanish capital “treated twelve people in this incident”, two of whom “died”, one of its officials, Montse Marcos, told reporters.
Among the ten injured in the fire at this Italian restaurant located in a western district of the Spanish capital, six “were transferred in serious condition to various hospitals in Madrid”, while the other four are more slightly affected , said Montse Marcos.
According to witnesses quoted by the daily El País, the fire broke out when a waiter was flambéing a dish on his plate. The fire quickly spread through the plants that decorated the establishment.
“One of the servers was going to put the finishing touches on a plate using a blowtorch to flambé it. He held the hot plate in one hand and the torch in the other. He passed close to the plants and in a few seconds, everything burned,” a customer told the newspaper.
According to Spanish media, one of the deceased is the server, the other is a customer.
The firefighters indicated that they had been able to intervene quickly since their barracks was about 400 meters from the scene of the disaster and that several people ran to warn them of the drama in progress.
“People ran to the fire station,” which is why “our response time was very fast, as half of our teams reached the scene by running and the other with our vehicles,” said explained to the press Carlos Marín, head of the guard team in the barracks.
A national police investigation was opened following this tragedy.