A fire declared early yesterday morning in a residence for the elderly in the west of Madrid, in the neighborhood of Aravaca, the origin of which is being investigated, caused the death of two women and injuries to a third who is still in La Paz Hospital in critical condition with very serious burns and smoke inhalation.
The incident, in which sixteen other people had to be transferred to hospitals with minor smoke inhalation, occurred at the Juan XXIII nursing home, arranged with the Community of Madrid. This center has a capacity for 40 residents, and is located at number 10 Proción street, in the Aravaca neighborhood, in the Moncloa-Aravaca district.
The 112 emergency service received the warning of the fire shortly before 7:00 a.m. and the Municipal Police, City Council firefighters, the National Police, and the Municipal Assistance went to the scene Emergencies – Civil Protection (Samur-PC), the Red Cross and the Madrid Medical Emergencies Service (SUMMA 112).
According to E lmundo.es, the fire started around that time in one of the rooms on the first floor, where three residents were sleeping. Smoke quickly spread throughout the two-story building. Several residents came out of their rooms, although they had difficulty going down the stairs because of the smoke in the hallways.
In statements to Efe, the manager of the Madrid City Council Fire Department, Roberto Moreira, explained that the fire was extinguished quickly. Its causes, still unknown, are being investigated by the National Police. According to Moreira, the eviction of the residence was “complicated” and he added that the smoke spread from the origin of the fire, located in a room on the first floor, to the second, from where the other residents
On the other hand, the supervisor on duty in Samur, Isabel Casado, explained that one of the dead women had severe burns, as did the woman who was taken to a hospital in critical condition. According to Casado, the Emergency teams practiced cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the bodies of the seriously injured people until, in the case of two of them, the maneuvers were abandoned after verifying that they were dead.
The residents evacuated to hospitals for observation suffered minor injuries from smoke inhalation, and the rest of the residents were collected by their families or transferred to other dependencies of the Community of Madrid.
Shortly after the events, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and other Madrid politicians lamented the deaths. “We deeply regret the death of two women at the Juan XXIII residence in Aravaca due to a fire. Our support for the deceased, the injured and the center’s workers. We are at your disposal for anything you need,” Ayuso wrote on his X account.
The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, who had planned to attend the first mass shooting in the capital at 1 p.m., announced shortly before that he would not be there, as a sign of the tragedy. In a statement made at Madrid City Hall, in Cibeles, alongside the Mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, Almeida observed a minute of silence for the deaths in the residence. The leaders of the municipal opposition regretted the accident and expressed their support for the families.
