R: Heavy smoke development from fire in half-timbered house in Offenburg

OFFENBURG (GERMANY): Shortly before 6:00 p.m. on September 28, 2024, a witness reported heavy smoke coming from a half-timbered house on Bühler Straße in Offenburg via an emergency call. The fire brigade then fought with a large contingent in accordance with the alarm algorithm “2. Alarm” the damage fire on the ground floor.

After the fire brigade brought the fire in the old half-timbered house under control at around 7.30 p.m., the extinguishing and clean-up work will still take a few hours as of 10.15 p.m. The fire caused severe damage to the one-and-a-half-story residential building. Towards the end of the operation, a neighbor contacted us and complained of nausea and coughing. He was examined by the emergency services. Otherwise there is no personal injury to complain about.

A fortunate circumstance was that, on the one hand, the deployment site was close to the responsible operations department of the volunteer fire department and, on the other hand, due to the wine festival in Offenburg, a security team was on duty at the fire station. Therefore, just a few minutes after the alarm went off, several respiratory protection teams started searching for possible missing people and fighting the fire in the completely smoke-filled building. The fire brigade extinguished the fire both internally and from the outside using two turntable ladders. For this purpose, parts of the roof membrane had to be removed.

The fire department was on the road with around 60 emergency services and 15 vehicles. During the operation, the comrades from the Zell am Harmersbach volunteer fire department strengthened the basic protection of the city of Offenburg with their turntable ladder. No information can currently be given about the cause of the fire or the amount of damage.