The firefighters who intervened for the Kennedy Tower are now considered heroes. Their efficiency allowed many lives to be saved and it was not a given given the configuration of the place, in very difficult conditions, they had to survey the 32 floors of the building, which allowed 244 residents to be rescued from the flames.
When they arrived, the fire quickly spread into a technical shaft. A real chimney that went through the entire building. Inside, smoke had already invaded all the floors… “When we arrive, the electricity is cut off, so it is already very dark in the stairwells and halls, and every time we open the landing door, there is smoke on every floor, we realize that in fact the fire is already present on each of the floors we try to enter.”says Julien Schreiber, first non-commissioned officer of the Liège fire brigade.
Victims sometimes had to be carried up 20 floors.
Colossal means were implemented to control the fire. Outside, no flames, but in the tower, firefighters faced walls of heat of several hundred degrees in certain places. “We have what we call rescue hoods, so we could put them on the faces of our victims, but these are very complicated rescues because, in addition to the equipment, we had to carry the victims onto the floors. , sometimes on 20 floors and we had to take people down through the stairwells”explains Vincent Bouffa, captain of the Liège fire brigade.
Heavy equipment
On their backs, oxygen tanks, but also protective clothing weighing several dozen kilos. “We have a helmet that already weighs a certain amount, we have all the firefighter’s protection that weighs more or less 10 kilos, we have the respiratory protection behind that also weighs around twenty kilos, plus all the forcing tools…”, Thomas Remont emphasizes. “The staff suffered enormously. You have to imagine that trying to climb 24 floors with your shopping is already something. Now, you have to imagine that a firefighter had more or less half an hour to three quarters of an hour of climbing with 50 kilos on his back,” continues Vincent Bouffa.
In all, 68 rescues were carried out by large ladder, but also by helicopter on the balconies of the apartments and on the roof of the 85 meter high building. So many interventions which will remain in the memory of these firemen.
“This intervention was already extraordinary because almost all of our resources were committed,” adds Vincent Bouffa. “We had to call on resources that, in my career, I think I would never have thought I would have to call on one day…”
An unprecedented intervention which lasted 11 hours in total. The firefighters admit, in the middle of the night, the results could have been much more dramatic.
Kennedy Tower Liège fire Miscellaneous facts
