The Ibis hotel continues to burn from the inside more than a week after it started burning.

Chus Heredia

A team of firefighters is permanently stationed at the Ibis hotel building on Pasillo de Guimbarda, which takes on a macabre and ... ghostly appearance up close, slowly and relentlessly consumed from the inside. The strategy is to let it burn until there is no more possibility of combustion, after deciding to avoid tackling the flames from the inside due to the very certain risk of structural collapse and because the team lacks specialized machinery to demolish facades and adopt another method of attack to reach remote and confined areas. Municipal sources have explained to SUR that they are controlling the situation until the fire is completely extinguished and they hope that the final outcome will not be delayed.

The same sources pointed out the factor of the large amount of wood in the building, which slows down the combustion. As this newspaper has been reporting, it is a fire of great technical complexity.

Technical Complexity

The incident, which was reported around 1:20 AM on Monday, originated from Le Grand Café, which occupies much of the ground floor of the building, and has very clear conditions: structures on the verge of collapse that prevented interior work and approach and many square meters of confined surfaces, false ceilings, and materials such as wood or steel. Thermal cameras, which are usually very helpful, had limited utility here.

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These technological systems offer images with changing colors depending on the temperature. If working inside, latent points, rapid heating, or smoke can be quickly detected. Firefighters then break the false ceiling or surface in question with a pike pole, a pointed tool, and extinguish the flames or cool as needed. This time the approach has been external. The most that could be broken, or rather finished breaking, are fragments of the facade and proceed to project the hoses from outside.

Appearance

In a few days, experts, judicial police, and urban planning technicians are expected to come into play. The perimeter, as requested by the City Council to the property, is protected around this hotel inaugurated in 1999, renovated in 2014, and which already had the first permits to increase its height by three floors. The material damages are in the millions, that's for sure.

The flames have reignited, to the surprise of passersby, several times during the week-long development due to the structural and compositional characteristics of the building and the complications arising from the risk of collapse. The strong smell in the area is increasing and has also been the subject of numerous complaints from the neighbors of this environment of Armengual de la Mota and surroundings.

The City Council of Málaga has called a press conference to report on the development of the fire and delve into more data

Precisely this Tuesday at noon, the City Council of Málaga has called a press conference to report on the development of the fire and delve into more data. The conveners are the councilors for Security, Avelino Barrionuevo, and Urban Planning, Carmen Casero.

Fortunately, the incident has not caused any victims or injuries, although it did record two personal incidents on the same night the fire started. On one hand, a firefighter was about to fall from the high floor to the fourth due to the collapse of a slab. On the other, officers had to extract, almost without visibility, a guest who, in a drunken state, had not noticed the activation of the hotel staff's evacuation protocol.

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