Smederevska Palanka: boy burning cables sparks blaze

A fire broke out in the afternoon of September 5 in an informal settlement in Smederevska Palanka. According to unofficial information a source familiar with the case shared with the Rina agency, the blaze was started by a boy between eleven and twelve years old who was burning cables to strip out the copper inside them.

The flames spread from the cables to dry grass and piled-up waste, then to several nearby structures. Wind kept pushing the fire toward neighboring shacks, and a thick column of black smoke soon rose above them. The smoke was visible from a large part of the town and alarmed residents in that section of Smederevska Palanka.

The settlement where the fire broke out sits on the outskirts of Smederevska Palanka.

Firefighters from Smederevska Palanka, Smederevo and Velika Plana were on the scene, helped by local residents and volunteers who joined them. After a two-hour fight, crews brought the fire under control and kept it from reaching the shacks the wind had been driving it toward. No injuries have been reported so far.

Firefighters stayed in the settlement even after the fire was contained, on standby in case it flared up again where the waste was still smoldering. The exact cause has not been officially established. The suspicion that a minor caused it remains, for now, an unofficial account, and a final determination is expected only after the on-site investigation.

Fires also broke out near Azanja and Selevac

At almost the same time, a fire started on the stretch of land between the villages of Azanja and Selevac, at the site of a former dump that, according to residents, had caught fire before. Within about fifteen minutes, the flames there had spread across more than ten hectares of dry grass. Wind hampered firefighting efforts there as well, and the first responders were local residents, until fire crews arrived to take over and remained on standby.

Two fires broke out the same afternoon, just a few kilometers apart, drawing on firefighting resources from three municipalities: Smederevska Palanka, Smederevo and Velika Plana. Based on information from the scene, the priority in both cases was the same: keep the fire from spreading out of open ground and into inhabited or already vulnerable structures, meaning the shacks in the Palanka settlement, and the surrounding land near Azanja and Selevac.

That the dump between Azanja and Selevac had burned before is no surprise to residents of the area. In this case too, no official cause has been released, and the relevant services remained on standby to watch for the fire flaring up again at the same spot.

What is known, and what still needs to be confirmed

The suspicion that the fire in the Smederevska Palanka settlement was caused by a minor burning cables for copper rests, for now, on a single source familiar with the case rather than an official statement. The same holds for the dump near Azanja and Selevac, where the fire spread across a large area in only about fifteen minutes, though a cause for that blaze has not been given in any available source.

Both fires, according to information available so far, left no one injured. Fire crews were kept on site at both locations even after containment, in the Smederevska Palanka settlement and at the dump near Azanja and Selevac alike, until the possibility of the fire reigniting where the waste kept smoldering could be ruled out.