Fire keeps devouring the Ibis hotel from inside more than one week since the incident

Malaga Ibis hotel fire

The Malaga fire department's strategy is to control it and let it burn until there's no more possibility of combustion

Chus Heredia

Malaga

A fire crew is permanently monitoring the Ibis hotel in Malaga, which, up close, takes on a macabre and ghostly appearance, as the fire slowly and relentlessly consumes it from within.

The strategy is to let it burn until there is no more possibility of combustion. Already last week, the fire department made the decision not to tackle the flames from the inside due to the risk of the building collapsing. In addition, the fire brigade lacks the specialised machinery to demolish facades and employ other methods to reach confined areas.

Municipal sources have told SUR that they are monitoring the situation until the fire is completely extinguished, which, they hope, will happen sooner rather than later. The large amount of wooden materials inside the building, however, make the task significantly more difficult.

Technical complexity

The fire, which witnesses first reported at around 1.20am on Monday, started from Le Grand Café, which occupies a large part of the building's ground floor.

The situation presented several key challenges: structures on the verge of collapse that prevented access and entry and a large area of confined spaces, including false ceilings and materials such as wood and steel. Thermal imaging cameras, which are normally a valuable tool in firefighting operations, proved of limited use in this case.

These devices produce images with colours that change according to temperature. When crews work inside a building, they allow firefighters to quickly identify hidden hotspots, rapidly rising temperatures or smoke. Firefighters then use a pike pole to break through suspended ceilings or other surfaces and extinguish the flames or cool the area as required.

The fire keeps reigniting

In a few days, experts, forensic police and urban planning technicians will examine at the scene.

The area surrounding the hotel, which opened in 1999, underwent renovations in 2014. It so happens that the Ibis hotel had a project to expand vertically, adding three new floors.

The fire has reignited on several occasions since the first incident on 25 May, due to the building's structural and compositional characteristics. The strong odour in the area is increasing and has also been the subject of numerous complaints from residents of Armengual de la Mota and the surrounding area.

Malaga city council has called a press conference at midday on Tuesday to provide an update on the fire and offer further details.

Fortunately, the fire has caused no fatalities or injuries, although two incidents occurred on the night it started. First, a firefighter nearly fell from the top floor to the fourth when the ground beneath him collapsed. Second, crews had to rescue a drunk guest who had failed to notice the hotel staff activating the evacuation protocol.