A huge fire devastated Copenhagen’s 17th-century former stock exchange. The fire engulfed the historic building’s landmark spire leading to its collapse in front of horrified witnesses.
A fire ripped through Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange, one of the Danish capital's best-known buildings, engulfing its spire which collapsed in a scene reminiscent of the 2019 blaze at Paris' Notre-Dame https://t.co/6k2jsQQQzD pic.twitter.com/gfJjR2ODIF— Reuters (@Reuters) April 16, 2024
The 54-metre spire disappeared into flames at the Borsen building, which had been undergoing renovation, news agency AFP said in a report.
Emergency services, employees from the Danish Chamber of Commerce, including its CEO Brian Mikkelsen, and even passers-by hurriedly carried large paintings away from the building in a race to save the historic artefacts from the fire, a separate report by Reuters said.
Local residents compared the fire to the fire in France’s Notre Dame in 2019 and engulfed the spire and most of the roof. “This is our Notre-Dame! This is a national treasure,” emotional local resident, 45-year-old Elisabeth Moltke was quoted as saying by AFP.
The fire started at around 7:30 am local time (0530 GMT) under the red-brick building’s copper roof, emergency services told reporters, as more than a hundred firefighters were dispatched to the scene.
The spire snapped and crashed down onto the street below. Dramatic photographs showed orange flames and huge plumes of black smoke billowing from the rooftop.
Fire trucks surrounded the building, covered in scaffolding and wrapped in tarp and which today houses the Danish Chamber of Commerce.
It lies just a stone’s throw from the country’s Parliament and seat of government Christiansborg.
The historic building, whose spire was shaped as the tails of four dragons intertwined, had been under renovation and clad in scaffolding when the fire broke out.
Parts of the roof had collapsed and the fire spread to several floors of the building, Vedsted told reporters.
“It’s always sad to put out fires in old buildings,” he said.
Some 120 people were working to contain the fire but only around 40% of it was under control, Vedsted said, adding that the firefighting operation would go on for at least 24 hours.
The Dutch Renaissance style building no longer houses the Danish stock exchange, but serves as headquarters for the Danish Chamber of Commerce.
“We are currently working hard to save our historical art from the Bourse,” the Chamber of Commerce wrote on X.
DRAGONS ON THE ROOF
The presence of dragons on the roof had been seen as symbolically protecting the exchange from enemies, as well as from fire, the Chamber said on its website.
The scaffolding around the building made it harder for the emergency services to get through to the flames, while the copper roof was trapping the heat.
“We are saving everything we possibly can,” a spokesperson for the fire department told reporters.
The nearby finance ministry was evacuated as a result of the fire, the police said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze.
Copenhagen police asked people to avoid driving in the inner part of the city.
The Danish Chamber of Commerce, which has owned the building since 1857, has worked on restoring it to the style of Denmark’s King Christian IV, who had the building constructed in the 17th century.
“400 years of Danish cultural heritage in flames,” Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt wrote on X. “The building is filled with art that tells a lot about our history, about who we are as a people,” he told reporters.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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