The first observations made after the fire which claimed the lives of three people on Sunday in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes) lead to favor the track of arson. Monday, August 14, the prosecutor of Grasse evoked “the thesis of a human intervention”.
“The fire expert proceeded last night and this morning to examine the scene of the disaster. His first findings lead him to rule out a claim of accidental origin and to favor the thesis of human intervention, ”explained in a press release the public prosecutor of Grasse, Damien Savarzeix. The individual whose custody was announced Monday morning is “a 47-year-old man, with no criminal record”: at this stage, he “denies any involvement in the occurrence of the facts”, underlined Mr. Savarzeix.
This man had been arrested “at 8:35 p.m.” on Sunday, after “the exploitation of the city’s video surveillance” made it possible to locate “an individual leaving the building two minutes before the cameras detected the start of a fire “, also explained the prosecutor. A psychiatric examination of this man was “scheduled for the end of the day” on Monday, he added.
Three people ‘seriously injured’
The three people who died in this fire which broke out on Sunday “at 2:49 a.m. in the stairwell of a five-storey building located in the historic center” of Grasse are “two women and a man”, including the The identity is “being identified, the bodies having been rendered unrecognizable by the fire”, specifies the statement of the prosecutor.
“Three people” were also “seriously injured” in the fire, “including one who is still in a life-threatening condition”, the prosecution reported, adding that “thirteen people were briefly hospitalized as a result of smoke inhalation”.
The investigation opened by the prosecution, entrusted to the Nice judicial police, was for “deliberate degradation by dangerous means resulting in death”, detailed the magistrate.
Among the three victims, two perished in the flames and another, who had probably defenestrated to try to escape the fire, was found unresponsive by the firefighters in front of the building.
The city center of Grasse, a city known for its perfumeries, has a high rate of poverty, but renovation operations have been carried out there for years. The building where the fire broke out had, like other buildings in the historic center, been given formal notice to speed up the renovation work by the municipality. The burnt building is located on place aux Aires, in the heart of the historic center of the city of perfumes, a lively square in summer and appreciated by tourists for its restaurants, its fountain and its adjacent pedestrian streets.
