In the meantime, the commission set up in Durlesti City Hall concluded that the attic destroyed by the fire was built illegally. And that the permit issued to the developer did not stipulate the attic. This was reported by Durlesti Mayor Eleonora Șaran. According to her, in 2015, the local council approved a detailed urban planning plan, on the basis of which the construction of the apartment building began. But when the documents were approved, this attic was not included in any project.
According to the mayor’s office, the roof was supposed to be made of metal tiles. And when the fire broke out, it turned out that all the floors in the attic were wooden.
Earlier, Mihai Enache, vice-mayor of Durlesti, claimed that the attic was built without authorization and that it was not foreseen in the original project. In addition, he noted that the local authorities repeatedly refused to issue a building permit for an apartment building on Tudora Vladimirescu Street because of the high-voltage lines passing there.
“The construction of this apartment building was allowed thanks to a court decision of March 2015, which obliged the mayor’s office to issue permits. Later, this land was resold and the new owner filed a lawsuit demanding to add an additional floor,” the vice mayor claims. He does not know whether the attic was added after the house was commissioned or later. Durlesti City Hall has not yet received the final acceptance certificate.
The fire in Durlesti destroyed about 1500 square meters of the roof of the building, 15 two-storey attic apartments were seriously damaged. Since the house was built in close proximity to high-voltage power lines, two 110 kV Chisinau-Sculeni lines were de-energized during firefighting to ensure the safety of firefighters. As a result, about 65,000 residents of Buiucan and Sculeni, as well as a number of suburbs, were left without electricity.
Fires on attic floors occur in Chisinau with dangerous regularity. A major fire in a house at 10/2 Independence Street occurred in 2014. The fire completely destroyed all apartments located on the attic floor and damaged all other apartments in the five-story building. In 2015, a fire broke out in the attic of an unfinished high-rise building on Albishoara Street. In 2021, a fire in a building on Pelivan Street affected 20 apartments in the attic and a number of apartments on the lower floors, which were flooded when the fire was extinguished.
In each of these cases, the municipality allocated substantial funds from the municipal budget to compensate the affected families, reconstruct the buildings and eliminate other consequences.
However, fire-hazardous attics continue to be built, including illegally, as in Durlesti. And it is time to solve the problem at the legislative level.
