“Those who closed emergency exits should be punished”: a firefighter commented on the terrorist attack in Crocus

The terrorists created a carefully planned hell in Crocus City Hall: on the one hand, bullets awaited people, on the other, fire and smoke, in which many eventually suffocated. Many victims were trapped in the smoke. MK asked the firefighter to comment on the situation with closed fire exits.

It is already obvious that most of the victims of the tragedy (as of 16.30 on March 23, 133 people died) did not die from gunshot wounds. They hid in the back streets of Crocus City Hall in the hope of avoiding a meeting with terrorists. And when the fire started, they simply could not get out of the burning building. Many suffocated from smoke; there were no injuries on the bodies. And here analogies with the fire in the Kemerovo shopping center “Winter Cherry” on March 25, 2018 involuntarily suggest themselves. 60 people died there, including 37 children. And in that case, people were cut off from emergency exits in cinema halls.

This is what one of the visitors to Crocus City Hall says.

“We tried the fire escape ladder, but it was closed. Who rushed up, who rushed down – closed. There was a crowd of 400-500 of us. As a result, we left through the central entrance in the first wave.”

– Why were the fire escapes closed, do you think? – I ask one of the rescuers.

– This is not a normal situation. Fire exits are either open or open automatically in the event of a fire. I can admit that they could have been blocked by terrorists.

– And if the fire escapes were open, would it be easier for people to get out?

– Only an expert can determine this. If among those who died were people who tried to exit through fire escapes, then, of course, those responsible for keeping them closed must be held accountable. But it is likely that those who encountered closed fire exits ended up evacuating through other routes. It is impossible to determine this without being on the spot. But we understand that fire escapes are created so that as many people as possible can be saved.

I do not rule out that one of the victims could have survived, having escaped from the terrorists, but did not survive because the fire escape routes in the premises were blocked. But I don’t know this fact. Therefore, for me at the moment, the only culprits are terrorists, and then let the investigation proceed.

– Was it possible to save those who suffocated from the smoke?

– Tips from firefighters can lead people under bullets. There are two different dangers here. And the advice for one situation is opposite to the advice for the second. There, the connection was also disrupted at that moment. It turns out that some services made the work of others more difficult.

– What do you have in mind?

– I heard that the firefighters had problems with communication at first, but this is only an assumption – that some kind of jammers were turned on. Then everything seemed to get better. In Moscow at that time there were generally problems with communication.

– A well-known rule of behavior in case of fire to save life is to put wet rags to your mouth and breathe through them…

– Yes, that’s true, but not only that. If you are locked in a room and smoke is coming into it, you need to wet your clothes and plug all the holes through which it can enter. A wet T-shirt tucked under the door will slow down the smoke, and as you rightly said, you should place a wet cloth on your face to filter the smoke particles from the air you inhale.

– How long can you hold out like this?

– Depends on temperature and percentage of oxygen in the environment. Sometimes it can take a very long time, or it may not help at all. Therefore, it is necessary to plug all the cracks with wet rags in order to increase the life time. If the temperature is very high, then rags in the cracks do not help, the water evaporates instantly. Consequently, a person will not be able to live in these conditions.

Our interlocutor noted that the firefighters did an excellent job. The fire was quickly contained. In the evening the next guard was called for help. A huge amount of equipment was working, helicopters alone dropped 160 tons of water onto the burning Crocus City Hall.