The apartment fire with two serious injuries on Tuesday in Malchow (Mecklenburg Lake District) is due to an open source of fire, such as a candle. This was the result of the investigation of a fire expert, as a police spokesman said on Wednesday. From this source of ignition, a chair belonging to the tenant caught fire, which was not far from an oven. This ruled out the initially assumed cause of the apartment fire, a fault in heating the tiled stove.

In the fire, the 92-year-old tenant of the apartment was life-threatening and her 62-year-old son was seriously injured. The woman came to a special clinic in Lübeck by rescue helicopter. Her condition remains critical, it said. The son had come to a clinic in Plau am See with smoke poisoning.

The son noticed smoke from the hallway and tried to get into the apartment and save the woman, but was unsuccessful. Only firefighters were able to get the 92-year-old out. About 50 firefighters were deployed. The house has two apartments.

PM