Huge damage and evacuation of tourists after the fire in Sozopol, which burned down a restaurant and a hotel near the central beach. The fire also affected a base of the Bulgarian Red Cross. No one was injured, BNT reported.
An emergency evacuation woke up the guests of the burning hotel.
Tanya Gesheva, tourist: “At 05:00, they started knocking on the doors from the neighboring evacuation rooms. When we came down here, the fire was terrible, the thunder too.“
Hristina Kovachka, tourist: “We were sleeping and there was a knock on the door. I shouted: “Am I dreaming, what is happening?“ – “Aunt Chrissy, fire, fire.“ This is my grandson, this is my daughter, I was very scared for them.“
Dozens of vacationers ended up outside with only the clothes on their backs.
Elena Kovacheva, tourist: “They told us that the firefighters would come in 4 hours to see if our clothes were inside and that was it, nothing else…“
The fire started from a refrigerator in the kitchen of a restaurant in front of the hotel, which had malfunctioned the day before the incident.
Georgi Katsarski, manager of the restaurant and hotel: “The refrigerator has never caused problems. Yesterday during the day a technician came to fix it and maybe that's where the whole problem started, because at 5:5, when the guard called, I entered the establishment, the refrigerator was on fire. We tried to stop it with 20 fire extinguishers.“
Four fire brigade teams were sent. The first one started extinguishing the fire 10 minutes after the incident was reported. And cars parked on the road made it difficult for firefighters to reach the burning hotel while the fire was raging.
Ivan Kirov, inspector at the RSPBZN-Burgas: “And the wind too, since we are on the seashore, but also the large fuel load, which is on the wooden shed in front of the hotel in the restaurant area. Plus, since the hotel has wooden ornaments and the terraces are wooden, it has spread upwards, there is damage to the rooms as well.“
Eight hours after the incident, the evacuated tourists were allowed to collect their surviving belongings.
Petar Manchev, tourist: “Not everything, but at least the most necessary - clothes and documents.“
Some of the tourists have canceled their vacation, others will be accommodated in neighboring bases.