Queensland Fire and Rescue services. Source: Bidgee, Wikimedia Commons
A 55-year-old man has died, and three people have been hospitalised, after a serious fire in an apartment building in Clayfield on Monday morning.
Residents of the Bonney Avenue apartment building were evacuated at around 5am after the fire broke out and fire fighters arrived on the scene.
A huge cloud of smoke was seen coming from the top of the apartment before the fire was completely extinguished two hours later.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services incident controller Ricky May said the fire likely started on the fourth or fifth floor, near the building’s lift.
“Over the course of the next 15 to 20 minutes, over 12 people were evacuated from the building,” May told Sunrise.
“(Crews) were in there doing search and rescue techniques to identify where those people were and evacuate them to a safe area.”
Around 13 people were treated for smoke inhalation by paramedics after being rescued by fire fighters, and three were taken to hospital in a stable condition.
Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) said confirmed that many of those treated are elderly.
QAS operational supervisor Georgia Gascoigne said, “They have been so resilient through this whole process, and their families will be taking care of them now.”
Police are currently treating the death of the man at the scene as non-suspicious and are currently investigating whether or not the fire was deliberate.
A spokesperson for Queensland Fire and Emergency has confirmed that all of the building’s occupants were accounted for.
