All 63 residential units in the apartment building are now considered uninhabitable as a result of the blaze.
A fire spread quickly at an apartment complex in Helsinki’s Kalasatama district last month due to issues related to the building’s fire barriers.
That’s according to the findings of an accident report carried out by the emergency services and seen by Yle.
The report revealed that there were gaps between the building’s fire barriers and that they were not constructed in an airtight fashion. Smoke also spread quickly through the building for the same reasons, the report added.
Fire barriers are designed to restrict the spread of fire and smoke, with a standard fire-resistance duration of at least one hour.
YIT: Too early to draw conclusions
A spokesperson for the City of Helsinki’s rescue services, Marko Rostedt, told Yle that it is too early to draw definitive conclusions from the report’s findings.
“The investigation into the fire will take weeks,” he said.
This view was shared by a representative of YIT, the company which now owns Lemminkäinen, the firm that built the apartment complex in 2016.
“We are waiting for the investigation to progress,” YIT communications manager Heidi Lemmetyinen wrote via email. “We take this matter very seriously, and our goal is to form as comprehensive an overall picture as possible before drawing more detailed conclusions.”
Meanwhile, the City of Helsinki told Yle that no deficiencies in the building’s fire barriers had previously come to the attention of inspectors.
Investigation ongoing
The blaze is believed to have started around 9pm on Saturday 23 May, when a resident was using a gas grill on a fourth-floor balcony.
The fire was initially extinguished, but flared up again on the roof of the building about half an hour later.
As a result, all 63 residential units in the building have been deemed uninhabitable.
Helsinki police are investigating the exact cause of the fire as a possible case of gross negligence causing public danger, but the charges may change as the investigation progresses. No injuries were reported as a result of the blaze.
Yle News reporter Ronan Browne explains why the Kalasatama fire has left many questions unanswered.
