A 37-year-old mother and her two daughters aged 9 and 16 died in a fire in their home in Wingles (Pas-de-Calais), north of Lens. The fire broke out during the night from Sunday to Monday. Two other children in the family, saved by a neighbor, were hospitalized.
This Monday morning, the doors and windows of the red brick terraced house, with one floor, were blackened by the flames. Two fire trucks were still parked in the street, blocked by a police car, and forensic officers were also on site. A burning smell still hung in the street.
“I heard an explosion”
“The fire broke out around 4:15 a.m. The floor was completely engulfed in flames. A neighbor was awakened by a noise, an explosion. He went to get a ladder and pulled out two boys who were at the first floor window,” reported Sébastien Messent, the mayor of Wingles.
“I heard an explosion, so I went out into the street. I took the ladder, the shutters were open, and black smoke was coming out. I helped the boys down the ladder. They were in panic,” said this neighbor, Marc, who only wanted to give his first name. “We did the most we could,” he said, explaining that it was one of his sons who alerted the firefighters. Another man tried from the back of the house to open the shutters but without success, he added.
The two boys “in relative urgency”
The two rescued boys, aged 11 and 12, were evacuated “in relative urgency” by emergency services and transported to Lens hospital, according to an officer from the departmental fire and rescue operational center (Codis). The mother and her two daughters could not be saved. At the start of the afternoon, their bodies were being evacuated from the first floor using a basket. The father was at work at the time of the tragedy.
The fire was brought under control around 8 a.m., mobilizing around fifty firefighters, according to the departmental fire and rescue service. When they arrived, the house was completely engulfed in flames, according to the Pas-de-Calais prefecture.
The preferred accidental origin
An investigation has been opened. According to a police source, the possibility of a criminal origin of the fire is “dismissed”, the investigation focusing on the conflagration of a battery of motorized personal transport vehicle of the self-balancing type, which was in progress recharge.
