UNMIK/PR/172
PRISTINA--Firefighters have brought under control a blaze which consumed the Boro and Ramiz Sports center in central Pristina overnight.
By noon today, some 75 firefighters from seven international units, including 35 Kosovars, had directed the flames vertically, preventing its expansion to dozens of shops on the ground floor of the huge complex, as well as to nearby apartment buildings and a large marketplace.
The interior of the sports complex continued to smolder this evening, and UNMIK Fire Chief Robert Triozzi said the work would continue to ensure the fire didn't re-ignite.
"We'll be hanging around for a couple of days and utilize fire departments from other parts of Kosovo to relieve the Pristina firefighters, who have done one hell of a job--and so that the KFOR firefighters can go back to their units," Triozzi told media this evening.
There were no significant injuries in the fire that gutted the sports center, built in the late 1970s and named after two Serb and Albanian Second World War heroes. Pristina residents had paid 2 percent of their incomes for several years to finance the complex.
SRSG Bernard Kouchner visited the scene twice today.
"This is very tragic for all the citizens of Pristina," Kouchner declared.
"We will try to rebuild it. It's very sad, because now we have a Department of Youth and Sport. We lack resources. But we'll do it."
Kouchner praised the efforts of the firefighters: "We are very proud of them: they were very brave and very efficient."
"We have a lot of dedication and professionalism on the part of the local Kosovo firefighters," Triozzi added. "We had 75 people and seven different languages going on. Everything worked like a Swiss clock."
The fire began early Friday evening in the basement storage area of the huge complex where officials say flammable materials such as fuel and matches were kept in cubicles sealed by steel doors. UNMIK fire officials had previously warned the building management that the storage area presented a hazardous situation.
Fire officials have not yet determined the exact cause of the fire and did not suspect foul play. The fire, they say, was a disaster waiting to happen.
"This fire never could have happened in Western Europe,' said Triozzi, a member of the New York fire fighting unit called "The Bravest.". "The building didn't cooperate: There was cheap wood inside and out. There were no fire walls, no fire doors, no sprinkler systems. In the basement, there was gasoline, paper, cars. They had everything under there. You cannot store those kind of things in a building like this."
Triozzi's fire department received a call at 6:39 p.m. last night and were at the scene five minutes later. The fire, however, spread rapidly due to the design of the building's interior-- tens of thousands of square meters of open space -- with no barriers that could have blocked its path. At one point, locating water was a problem. Pristina has no fire hydrants. By midday Saturday, 500,000 liters of water had been sprayed into the blaze, trucked by tankers from KFOR and the local fire department.
"We also ran out of air," Triozzi said. At one point, firefighters used six oxygen bottles an hour struggling with toxic fumes. "But these were logistical problems we overcame right away with the help of KFOR."
During the first six hours Triozzi called in crews and equipment from Sweden, Finland, Poland and the United Kingdom to join the Kosovo police force, and at 3 a.m. he called Camp Bondsteel, the US base, for help. The Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK) was on standby, handling crowd control and protection of the businesses inside the Sports Center, although their training has not yet included fighting fires.
At midnight, Triozzi declared the sports center lost, and concentrated on preventing the fire from spreading horizontally and to the shops below. Early this morning, he ordered firefighters to break windows in the upper clerestory of the sports center's peaked ceilings, drawing the fire upwards. They also doused the nearby open marketplace with water, to prevent it from being set alight by the falling pieces of timber and copper cladding.
"The intention was to let it burn itself out before it gets to the shops below," Triozzi told reporters. "At least 500 people depend on those shops. We couldn't afford to have them on the street without a job."
UNMIK officials warned that many other buildings are at risk due to shoddy construction, and that no new building would be permitted without a thorough fire inspection. SRSG Kouchner said he would consider issuing a regulation on fire safety, but reminded media that UNMIK's focus so far was on building a fire department from scratch.
"When we came there was no fire brigade, no materials, no volunteers," Kouchner said. "We had to start, and they did it."
"We had to create the fire service--like everything in Kosovo-- from zero," said Triozzi, who over the past six months helped build an indigenous fire service and locate spare parts to make ancient fire trucks and equipment usable. Enforcing fire prevention will be the next step.
"I want to make a plea to Kosovo people," said Triozzi, "that when they build something, come to us, ask us how it should be built. You cannot build things with any kind of materials, any way you want, anywhere you want. We have people building gas stations all over Kosovo. What safety criteria do they meet? We're going to have more disasters unless fire prevention is taken seriously."