HELSINGIN SANOMAT international

Five dead in fire at old people's home

Three elderly women and two men died in a fire that engulfed an old people's sheltered housing centre in the early hours of Sunday morning. The fire took place in the centre of the small town of Maaninka, north of Kuopio. It completely destroyed the building, which had only been officially opened a week previously. A board of inquiry was set up immediately to examine the cause of the fire, which is thought to have started in the room of a man who was a smoker.
   The fire was reported shortly after 11 on Saturday evening. The scale of the blaze and the numbers of people to be evacuated swamped the local fire brigade, and back-up was called in from surrounding forces. Two firemen were among the four people injured in the tragedy.
   The housing centre did not have a night-nurse or duty officer for the 23 old people in this newly-built wing of a larger communal centre for the elderly. Building work in the other part of the centre had also meant that a number of dementia patients and old people who had difficulty moving were temporarily being housed in the building that caught fire.
   The reason for the lack of on-site night staff was apparently a row over funding between the local authority and the State. The presence of a permanent night nurse is interpreted as denoting institutional care, at which point the elderly person would lose certain benefits payable by the Social Insurance Institution (KELA) and would become the responsibility of the local community.
   The Kuopio Fire Chief said on Sunday that preliminary investigations showed the building to have been in sound condition and equipped with modern extinguishers, but naturally the fire had a chance to get a hold before help arrived from neighbouring towns (Kuopio is 45 kilometres from Maaninka, for example), and the first few fire officers on the scene concentrated solely on getting the old people out as best they could. Matters were apparently not helped by fire doors that had been left open to ease the access of the people living in the rental apartments in the building, but this is among the matters that will have to be addressed when the accident inquiry board is convened this week.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 7.12.1999

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