Spain: a fire devours a 14-story building in the city of Valencia

A massive blaze engulfed a 14-story residential tower in Valencia, Spain, on Thursday, reaching such alarming proportions that made it unsafe for firefighters to conduct their operations. The inferno's intensity prevented effective intervention, resulting in injuries to at least a dozen emergency personnel during their response efforts.

This Friday, about 15 hours after the fire broke out, the local authorities of Valencia announced the death of at least nine people in the fire, in addition to 1 others wounded, 7 of them firefighters. The balance could vary in the following hours, because fire crews were not yet able to fully access the burning building.

The fire was reported by some neighbors around 5:30 p.m., local time, in this residential building north of the Spanish tourist city. The fire started on the fourth floor, in a house that, according to the president of the neighborhood community, was not inhabited. Soon the flames spread to the rest of the property.

According to some Spanish media, the façade of the building has a highly flammable plastic material, polyurethane. In 2017, 72 died in London in a building fire that had similar cladding. The building was built in the late 2000s.