Fire destroys Ukraine aid donations at Frankfurt am Main school

A fire in a storage building at the Viktor Frankl School in Frankfurt am Main destroyed aid donations collected for Ukraine and brought up to 150 firefighters to the scene, Hessenschau reported. No one was injured because the school was closed for the autumn holidays and nobody was on the school grounds when the blaze began.

The fire broke out at about 02:30 local time early Friday morning in the ground floor of an outbuilding in the Dornbusch district. The space was being used by the Frankfurt for Ukraine initiative to store donated goods, according to police and the fire service. The initiative had rented the outbuilding from the school.

Firefighters said the whole ground floor of the outbuilding was affected. Crews wearing breathing apparatus repeatedly entered the building and had to empty the storage area to reach remaining hot spots. The open flames had been extinguished by about 07:30 local time, but damping-down work was expected to continue into the evening.

Hessenschau reported that most of the packed donations in the store room were destroyed. The supplied source text says the stored items included aid intended for Ukraine and that there was little technical equipment in the room.

The fire service deployed up to 150 personnel because crews working in breathing apparatus had to rotate frequently. Residents in Dornbusch reported the smell of smoke and made numerous emergency calls. The fire service issued a public warning both to inform residents and to reduce repeated calls about the same incident.

Officials said there was no health danger to local residents and lifted the warning at about 08:00. Police are investigating the cause of the fire. The amount of property damage had not been established in the supplied material, and no cause had been announced.