Two consecutive fires on Sunday the 9th of April in a leisure port in Cataluña destroyed six moored craft. The incident took place in Port Fòrum in Sant Adrià de Besòs (Barcelona).

The first fire broke out around 07.00h and by midday firemen had put it out. However, three hours later, the fire came back to life. The reason behind the second incident is being investigated so see if there was a failure on the part of the fire service.

When the fire service received the alert at 07.13h, they deployed a total of 21 firemen, as well as the sea-rescue launch.

Four boats were completely burnt out and consequently sunk whilst a fifth one was severely damaged.

A French couple lived on one of the yachts and now find themselves homeless.

The fire service declared the fire out at 12.09h yet at 15.00h the fire came back to life. Soon the 112 emergency number had received 50 calls to say what was happening and quickly affected five more craft of between 19 and 20 metres in length, two of which were destroyed and another three partially affected.

Around 17.30h the firemen again declared the fire extinguished but continued at the scene to help remove the damaged boats from the dock.

Initial results from the investigation into the fires point towards leaked oil from the five craft affected in the first fire that might have served as the cause of the second fire.

Precisely because of the leaked oil, as well as the substances used by the firemen, an anti-contamination protocol was brought into action to prevent these chemicals from reaching nearby beaches.

Over 20 people received hospital treatment for smoke inhalation but none of which was actually hospitalized.

(News: Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Cataluña)