A woman in her eighties suffered severe burns when her apartment in a service complex for senior citizens on Dalbraut in Reykjavík caught fire yesterday. She is being kept unconscious on a respirator in the intensive care unit at the National Hospital.
Seven others were taken to hospital because of smoke inhalation. Five people were able to return home after medical exams, but two fire fighters were kept at the hospital overnight, Morgunbladid reports.
Every available fire fighter and five ambulances were called to the scene. Divisional director at the Capital Region Fire Department Marteinn Geirsson said the inhabitants of the service apartments had been in grave danger.
Geirsson added that it was fortunate that the fire fighters had not been tied up extinguishing fires in withered grass like they had been earlier in the day.
The source of the fire is unknown, but according to Morgunbladid, it may have been started by a cigarette.
