Ten children among dead in Paris hotel fire

Alfred Millot was among the first to set eyes on the horrifying scene, an overcrowded budget hotel ablaze at night, with panic-stricken people dangling from flaming windows.

The only way out was a stairwell choked with thick black smoke and flames. At least 20 people were killed in the fire – half of them children.

The six-storey Paris Opera hotel, with 32 rooms and a single exit, was packed when the fire broke out at 2.20am (1.20am Irish time) yesterday.

It was made to take 61 guests, according to a police document with a technical description of the hotel. However, authorities said 90 people were staying there - the vast majority of them needy families placed there by social services.

It was one of the worst such blazes in the French capital in recent memory.

The single stairwell may have sealed the fate for many. The sole means of safely exiting the building, it drew up smoke and flames like a chimney, a typical fire scenario, fire officials said.

At least 20 people were killed, 10 of them children, police said. Of the 53 injured, 11 were seriously hurt and were being treated in hospitals. Police did not release the identities or nationalities of the dead.

The injured came from France, Senegal, Portugal, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Ukraine and Algeria, police said.

A Canadian also was slightly injured, but was released after hospital treatment, said Canadian Embassy spokesman Normand Smith. Two other Canadians at the hotel were unharmed, he said.

Millot, who heads the fire prevention team at the chic department store across the street, Galeries Lafayette, was among the first on the scene.

“There were about 10 people that I saw dangling from different windows. It was a very dramatic situation.”

Police said members of Millot’s six-person team were the first to reach the burning building, and helped hose down the hotel by stretching department store hoses across the narrow street in the tourist 9th district.

At least one person sought refuge on the burning roof, screaming and waving for help as flames poured from windows and fire officers scrambled up ladders.

“One can imagine young children, parents without their clothes, in the middle of the night, fast asleep, smoke, cries, tears,” fire services spokesman Laurent Vibert on Europe-1 radio.

The fire probably started in a first-floor breakfast room, fire officials said. Nearly 260 firefighters contained the blaze 90 minutes later, but it was not extinguished for four hours.