Fire at the Historic Centre of Arnhem (Netherlands)
On Thursday, March 6, 2025, a town-scale evacuation was initiated at around 7:00 am in the city center of Arnhem (Netherlands) due to a fire that broke out at around 3:45 am in a shop on Jansstraat, which quickly spread to other historic shops and buildings.
A part of the city center was left without electricity and the center of Arnhem was closed to traffic. Due to the wind, smoke from the fire also reached the neighboring neighborhoods, carrying ash.
The event forced the authorities to send a message on the NL-Alert system warning the local population to keep windows, doors and ventilation systems closed. In addition. The fire brigade requested that electricity and gas be cut off in about 150 shops and homes.
To allow people to evacuate, the police broke down doors at the stages in which the fire spread rapidly.
In the late afternoon of the same day, the fire was extinguished.
The fire did not cause any casualties despite the rapid spread of the fire to adjacent buildings, which seems to be attributable to the fact that the old buildings are made of wood.
About 200 firefighters fought the fire, even keeping the surrounding buildings wet to limit its spread. The authorities isolated the entire historic center of the city, also pointing out the probability that the fire had released asbestos.
Of the block of buildings affected by the fire, which house shops on the ground floor and residences and warehouses on the upper floors, about ten were at greater risk of spreading but, according to the spokesman, the core of the block was completely burned. Furthermore, during the phases of the fire, the risk of collapse of the facades was also considered.
The buildings affected date back to the 18th and 19th centuries.
On the fire risk to which historic centers are exposed, especially those with a significant presence of wood, we have published the following posts:
