Fire in Mikhailovka house kills child, leaves four hospitalized
The tragedy was a shock for the residents of the small town.
On the night of December 21–22, a fire broke out in one of the large cottages on the outskirts of the town of Mikhailovka in the Volgograd region, quickly engulfing the entire building. It claimed the life of a four-year-old child and was the reason the parents, who tried to save their son, ended up in intensive care in serious condition. Now the house resembles ruins more than the place where two ordinary large families lived peacefully and comfortably just recently. We visited the site and tried to understand what happened on that terrible night and how the lives of a dozen people can be upended in an instant.
«Four in hospital. One dead»
Reports of a major fire in Mikhailovka appeared around two in the morning on December 22. Eyewitnesses reported that the fire engulfed a residential house at the intersection of two lanes, Estonsky and Chelyabinsky.
«The house had two owners. One family lived in the first half, their child burned to death. People lived in the other half too. The house burned down completely,» residents of Mikhailovka told V1.RU.
Soon, details about the scale of the tragedy emerged: at 00:53, emergency services received information about a fire in a private house. It was also reported that four people were injured: two adults and two children, who were taken to the Mikhailovka Central District Hospital. A four-year-old child could not be pulled from the burning house. A little later it became known that all of them were members of the same family.
This is how the once-large cottage looks now.
Thirty-eight-year-old Svetlana and forty-two-year-old Roman were hospitalized in extremely serious and serious condition. On the morning of December 23, the regional health department reported that the couple had been transferred to Clinical Emergency Hospital No. 25 in Volgograd. The children, boys aged 10 and 15, were also transferred to Volgograd from the children«s hospital in Mikhailovka by the morning of December 24.
«They are normal, ordinary people»
Near the charred skeleton of the house, from which the heavy smell of soot still lingers, locals discuss the tragedy:
— They had three boys. One goes to school with my grandson. Three boys, but one died. The little one.
— Oh, my God… Is that Roman«s little son?
— The youngest, yes.
— Oh dear…
— I saw it when almost everything had already burned down. They kept trying to put it out… They were putting it out until morning. The fire trucks arrived, and they didn»t have water. They say there were 12 fire trucks. Hush! There were only two, and a third one arrived later.
— This is such a disaster, and a child died on top of it…
What happened continues to disturb local residents.
This is about the Vasilyev family (surname changed. — editor«s note), which consists of five people: mother Svetlana, father Roman, and three sons aged fifteen, ten, and four. The family lived in one of the two halves of the large house. The other half was shared by the Semyonov family (surname changed. — editor»s note), also a large family: a mother, father, and three children.
Two families lived in the L-shaped house, separated by a wall but under one roof.
As reported by the Investigative Committee, the Vasilyev family was considered well-adjusted and was not under any supervision. The neighbors who shared the house with them agree with this assessment.
— We communicated, talked, the kids all played together. Sometimes we argued, if, for example, the music was too loud, but that«s always the case. That»s how everyone lives. As for us being at odds or anything like that — that never happened and doesn«t happen now, — Elena Semyonova describes the relationship with the neighbors. — They are normal, ordinary people. The children were always well-dressed and did well in school. I was always told they were great, earning certificates of merit, they were always praised at school assemblies.
The Semyonovs lived in the house at the intersection of the two lanes for almost twenty years, sharing a common roof with the Vasilyevs all that time. Elena knew that Roman worked at a chain grocery store, and Svetlana was a nurse at a kindergarten, but recently she had started working part-time at the same place as her husband.
The Vasilyevs, according to neighbors, were never idle.
Roman and Svetlana were known to all the locals from the chain store. Igor, a logistician who lives very close to the Vasilyevs, was friends with the couple.
— When their son was born, Roman and I had a little drink to celebrate, — Igor recalls. — Before that, we only said «hello» for two years, but then we got closer, visited each other. He lives about 7–10 meters from me, I saw him every day, talked with his kids. They«re good, smart kids. I think they»re even straight-A students. Very well-mannered and decent boys.
None of the neighbors even suspected what misfortune would befall the Vasilyev family.
«Where»s the kid? Bring him here!«
When V1.RU correspondents arrived at the scene, barking could be heard from the kennel.
In the evening, according to Elena, everything was quiet, but around one o«clock she woke up because of noise from the other side of the wall.
— Maybe the kids aren«t sleeping, running around. Mine sometimes don»t go to bed right away either, — Elena recalls her thoughts at that moment. — Then there was a bang, something thudded over there, a kind of muffled sound. Then a second pop, a third, and then the walls started shaking. I jumped up, ran to the children«s bedroom, and they were already running: »Mom, what«s happening?» We opened the curtain, which faces their side (the Vasilyev family. — editor«s note). Everything was blazing there. I woke up my husband and said: »We«re on fire.» He ran out, took a look, ran back in, started making noise, began gathering the kids, documents, and we went outside. The kids say there was a fourth bang, but we had already wrapped the little one in a blanket and picked her up, so I didn«t even notice.
Many belongings were simply left abandoned.
The main thing for the families was to escape the clutches of the fire.
A similar scene is described by Igor, whose windows directly face the house of the Vasilyevs and Semyonovs. He was not only the first to run to the site but also the one who provided assistance to the Vasilyev family.
— I saw the house was on fire and ran there in a T-shirt and shorts, — Igor recalls. — Roman was trying to break the window: I could hear blows from inside. There was a shovel nearby. I took it, broke the window, and he climbed out. I was even shouting to Roman: «Where»s the kid? Bring him here,« but he either didn»t hear me or didn«t understand. Sveta was running back and forth in the room. I don»t know, maybe she couldn«t find the child because he usually slept with them in the room. She was rushing around in there until the last moment, and her condition was worse. And in the next room, the boys opened the window themselves and got out, but they couldn»t climb over the fence: I helped them over and took them to my house until the ambulance arrived. While I was doing that, Sveta herself «fell out.»
Now there is not even a hint of glass in the window openings, but shards are visible on the ground.
According to Igor, Svetlana was injured the most not only because she was in the house longer than other family members, searching for her youngest son, but also because of a leg injury — she was badly cut by glass and lost a lot of blood.
However, it was not possible to obtain real information about the woman«s condition. Alena Strelina, a press officer for the Volgograd region governor»s office, only dryly stated, citing the regional health department: «All necessary medical assistance is being provided in full to the girl injured in the fire, in accordance with her diagnosis. Under current legislation, diagnoses are not disclosed and constitute medical confidentiality.»
«How will people answer to God?»
A man living opposite the burned house, for his part, is outraged by the work of the rescue services as well as the endless stream of gawkers and the curious.
— A woman here almost lost her mind. How is a normal person supposed to look at such a disaster? I«m amazed… A line of cars drives by every day. They drive up, look. Well, what»s there to look at? Such a terrible disaster, it«s just awful, — Vladimir fumes. — The firefighters arrived: there»s practically no water. They sprayed about one and a half cubic meters of water, what«s that? The fire is raging. If they had arrived on time, this disaster wouldn»t have happened. They arrived, sprayed a little, and that«s it. They only fanned the flames more. Okay, me, an outsider, but they aren»t going out for the first time and they know everything perfectly well. How will people answer to God? They think it«s just a job…
Vladimir saw everything with his own eyes, closer than he would have liked.
Elena Semyonova also speaks about the actions of the firefighters, believing the damage could have been less if the extinguishing had been organized differently.
— We waited for the firefighters for a very long time. We called, they said: «They»ve already been called,« but they weren»t there. It felt like 40 minutes, — Elena recalls. — In the end, two trucks arrived, and one turned out to be completely empty. If they had arrived full and had done at least something properly with the fire on our half… At least only the roof would have burned. I was here, near the yard, making noise: «Help, somebody, where are the fire trucks?» No one at all, you couldn«t even hear them. If they had arrived earlier, of course there would have been damage, but not on such a scale as now.
These panels used to be the roof, which reportedly covered something like an attic or second floor.
Igor, who was at the scene of the tragedy for more than four hours, said practically the same thing.
— It all started around half past twelve, I went to sleep at five in the morning when, in principle, everyone had already dispersed: the neighbors who were also affected (the Vasilyev family. — editor«s note) remained, and the firefighters were finishing their work. They might not have taken 40 minutes to arrive, but it was long, of course, very long. If they had arrived earlier, perhaps it would have been possible to save the other half of the house.
Neighbors believe the scale of the fire might not have been so vast and horrifying.
«Passed from one pair of hands to another and thrown out to move her farther away»
The neighbors are sure: the house could not be saved, in part, because it was only brick-clad on the outside, and the interior remained wooden. According to Vladimir, even his house was hit by the flames so hard that the gates started heating up: the flames were high and the heat was intense.
It is no longer possible to live in what remains of the house.
— Nothing is left, — Elena says. — You«d need a tractor to just rake everything out. There»s nothing there. Everything burned, even the walls cracked and collapsed. We went to live with my parents for now. None of us were hurt because I automatically told everyone to grab documents, we took jackets and left. We grabbed the little one. She didn«t understand what to put on. You give her a sweater, and she puts it on like pants. They passed her from one pair of hands to another out of the house, into the yard, and just threw her out beyond the yard to move her farther away. She»s eight, and she«s already afraid of fire. Now, of course, she cries: »I want to go home.«
«There was no smell»
No one has a definitive version of the cause of the fire yet. Elena doesn«t believe it was a gas leak: there was no corresponding smell.
— I don«t know what happened there, what caught fire, what exploded, — the woman is at a loss. — There was no smell of burning before this, nothing else stank to make you jump up and start panicking. Smoke started when we had already jumped up after the third explosion, when it banged properly, then the smell of burning started.
Elena does not know what caused the destruction of the house.
Igor, who was the first to run to the property, also doubts the version of an accident or careless handling of fire.
— The story about alcohol in their case — that«s a no, — the man is convinced. — Although their neighbors came running, making noise, but I don»t know. I«ve lived here for six years and have never seen them drunk. An ordinary family. They celebrated on holidays, but as for them staggering and falling about — I»ve never seen that in six years.
At the same time, Igor suspects the fire started in the central part of the house.
The brick stoves in the kitchens were barely damaged by the fire.
— I assume it all started from the kitchen because of the layout; no matter which room you come out of, you immediately end up in the kitchen, — the man explains. — To the left from there is the children«s room, to the right is the parents» room. And it seemed like, when I ran out, the roof was burning not at the edge but in the middle. If the fire had started in one of the living rooms, fewer people would have survived there.
Walking past the burned house, locals will each time recall the horrible tragedy.
