Eleven people died following the fire which occurred on Wednesday August 9 in a guesthouse welcoming disabled people in Wintzenheim, near Colmar, confirmed in the early afternoon the deputy prosecutor of Colmar, Nathalie Kielwasser. Present at his side to express “all [his] sadness and [his] solidarity” after this “terrible tragedy”, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, distinguished “eight people who died and three still missing”.

Judging that it was “too early” to determine the causes of the disaster, Nathalie Kielwasser nevertheless described a “fire which probably smoldered, in view of the conflagration of this partly half-timbered building”. The magistrate also confirmed that the lodging was occupied by “two different groups of people with mild mental disabilities”, accompanied by two associations from Nancy and Besançon. The investigation for “research of the causes of death” was entrusted to the research section of the gendarmerie of Strasbourg.

Among the twenty-eight people who were staying on the site, seventeen other people were evacuated and one, in relative emergency, was evacuated to hospital. The missing people are a supervisor and ten adults with mild mental disabilities, Mr. Marot told Agence France-Presse, saying he had “no information” on the causes of the disaster.

The fire broke out around 6:30 a.m. The Alsatian-style half-timbered building was the scene of a “widespread conflagration”, according to firefighters, who arrived on site “less than a quarter of an hour” after the fire. start of the disaster. “300 square meters were set on fire, on a building of 500 square meters”, describes the prefecture, confirming that “the fire was quickly brought under control despite the violence of the flames”. Seventy-six firefighters were mobilized.

“Everything burned”

The victims were found upstairs as well as in a collapsed mezzanine. Some people upstairs were able to get out, but not all, according to firefighter Philippe Hauwiller. The disaster is the deadliest recorded in France since the fire of a bar in Rouen in 2016, where thirteen people died.

The building is an old barn renovated into a gîte, with two floors and an attic, according to the firefighters, who said the fire started on the ground floor. “The building is completely destroyed, reported on BFM-TV Daniel Leroy, deputy mayor of the Alsatian commune. There remains the ground floor, a little less affected. But the accommodation floor, there is nothing left, everything has burned down. »

The elected official also said that the missing persons were “all adults, there are no children”. “The building hosted for the holidays, two groups of adults with disabilities, supervised by two associations,” wrote the Haut-Rhin prefecture in a press release.

According to information from Le Monde, the trip was partly organized by a specialized travel agency, Oxygène Vacances Adaptés. Residents supported throughout the year by associations for the disabled, have registered for this stay individually, explains the town hall of Nancy, where several participants come from. “It is an agency with which these associations have worked for a long time, recognized for its seriousness”, supports Mathieu Klein, the mayor of Nancy.

“Faced with this tragedy, my thoughts are with the victims, the injured, their loved ones,” Emmanuel Macron also wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Thank you to our mobilized security forces and rescue services. »