Tilburg student housing fire maybe caused by short circuit in air fryer
A fire in a student housing complex in Tilburg during the early hours of Monday morning may have been caused by a short circuit in an air fryer, several students told Brabants Dagblad. The police are still investigating the cause, but have ruled out arson. No one got hurt.
The fire broke out in an apartment on the top floor of the five-story building on Verbernelaan, which houses mainly international students. Many students were in the communal areas when the smoke alarms started going off. Others were woken by the alarms or by their neighbors banging on their doors.
The fire department evacuated around 70 students. “It wasn’t really allowed, but I quickly put on some clothes and grabbed my wallet and phone,” student Leonard from Germany told the newspaper. His neighbors woke him. “It was all very intense. I saw people standing around me with pets in their arms. It was cold and some were only wearing slippers and a bathrobe. Fortunately, the fire brigade handed out blankets.”
Students in the adjacent complex took pity on their evacuated peers and let them into their rooms. “We spread them out over our apartments so that they could spend the night here,” 25-year-old Kevin told the newspaper.
The firefighters extinguished the blaze after about an hour. After the building was ventilated, students living on the first, second, and third floors were allowed to return to their homes. Half of the residents of the fourth floor could also go back.
The apartment where the fire started burnt out completely. Several other apartments on the fifth floor are uninhabitable due to smoke and soot damage. There is also water damage to several apartments on the fourth floor.
Housing corporation WonenBreburg arranged alternative housing in the area for the students who can’t go home yet. It expects that most of the apartments will be cleaned and liveable again by the end of the week, a spokesperson told Brabants Dagblad. “We are now walking around with a team and talking to residents. It was a shock for many, but fortunately most of them are doing well.”
