A 59-year-old man died in his burning bedroom in Knittelfeld (Styria) on Saturday evening. He must have fallen asleep with a lit cigarette. Three other residents of the apartment building were rescued outside.
Around 8 p.m., the apartment of the 59-year-old caught fire. It is on the first floor of a three-storey apartment building in the center of Knittelfeld. The man lives there alone and there are no pets.
The emergency services were quickly alerted. As a result, the fire could not yet spread to the rest of the apartment, let alone the entire house. According to the fire department, the stairwell was already full of smoke.
Body already heavily charred
The police managed to get two residents out, the fire brigade – 32 members from Knittelfeld and Apfelberg were partly on duty with heavy respiratory protection – rescued another person. However, the 59-year-old homeowner could not be reached.
A respiratory protection team therefore searched for the man in the heavily smoky apartment and found an already charred corpse. The police assume that the 59-year-old is involved. The body is now being autopsied.
No evidence of a crime
Fire detectives and police officers from the crime scene of the National Criminal Investigation Department began the investigation. Based on the traces found so far, it can be assumed ‘with a high probability’ that the ‘careless handling of tobacco products’ caused the fire – in other words: the man may have fallen asleep with a lit cigarette. There are currently no indications of a third-party malfunction or technical cause. The other apartments in the house are habitable.
Source: Krone
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