Electrical cabinet fire in Saldus forces 377 people to evacuate nearby building
On Friday an electrical cabinet caught fire on Lielā iela in Saldus, next to a public building. A total of 377 people left the building before rescuers arrived.
An electrical cabinet caught fire on Friday on Lielā iela in Saldus, a town in Latvia, next to a public building. As a result, 377 people evacuated from the building. The incident was reported by the State Fire and Rescue Service (VUGD), the national authority responsible for firefighting and rescue operations in Latvia.
The call and the response
Rescuers received the call to Lielā iela on Friday at 8:22 a.m. On arrival they found the electrical cabinet burning over an area of 0.5 square metres. According to VUGD, people left the building on their own before the service arrived. Work at the scene was completed at 9:21 a.m., so the response lasted a little over an hour.
The source does not say what caused the cabinet to ignite, whether anyone was hurt, or what kind of public building it was.
Calls over the past 24 hours
VUGD also reported that over the previous 24 hours it received 42 calls in total. Of these, 12 were to extinguish fires and 22 were for rescue work. Another eight turned out to be false alarms, meaning no assistance was actually needed.
In the Saldus case, the evacuation took place without rescuers' involvement, because people had already left the building before firefighters began work.
