Wooden floors and sudden oxygen surge fuelled devastating Ibis hotel fire

Although Malaga city council confirmed on Tuesday that the fire that devastated the central Ibis hotel was under control, firefighters refrained from declaring it completely extinguished due to the persistence of small, smoldering hotspots on the upper floors of the building.

Fire crews had spent 30 hours and pumped between 3,000 and 5,000 litres of water per minute at the peak of the blaze to try and extinguish the fire that started early on Monday.

The disaster's severity required a water deployment unprecedented in local history. In just 12 hours of intensive work, the firefighters used more than two million litres of water. Municipal water company Emasa explained that this same volume would typically supply a town of 20,000 inhabitants for half a day.

After the initial operation, the fire reignited on Monday afternoon and spread with unusual force to the north and upper floors of the hotel. These areas had not had direct contact with the flames in the first hours of the incident.

High temperatures kept several small secondary fires active on the fourth floor of the hotel and also in the premises of Le Grand Café (the restaurant where the disaster allegedly originated).

Public safety councillor Avelino Barrionuevo announced the start of cooling down operations on Tuesday. Three fire crews remained on site. This allowed the reopening of the the Avenida de Fátima tunnel to traffic.

Barrionuevo explained that the wooden materials inside the café and the sudden surge of oxygen exacerbated the fire. The moment the glass windows shattered, the massive influx of oxygen facilitated the uncontrollable spread of the fire to the hotel.

The hotel's alarms went off, activating the self-protection plan. "With the help of employees, security personnel and the Local Police, they immediately evacuated the building and took the guests to a safe area," the councillor said.

The guests had to initially move to another hotel (Málaga Centro), but they have since relocated to other establishments in the city.

Extinguishing the fire posed an extraordinary challenge due to the building's architectural features. Barrionuevo said that the building's internal floors contained wooden elements, which prevented firefighters from tackling the blaze from the inside.

The risk of the ceilings collapsing due to the heat forced them to adopt a purely defensive strategy, attacking the fire from the street using aerial ladder trucks and high-pressure pumps.

Throughout the night, three crews remained at the scene, with three fire engines, two ladder trucks, three water tankers and five light vehicles.

What remains of Le Grand Café are ashes and the Ibis hotel has suffered severe damage to 75 to 80 per cent of its usable area. Only a few rooms at the far north end of the fourth floor withstood the disaster.

While initial reports from firefighters suggested a state of near ruin and advised against allowing forensic investigators access due to the risk of collapse, subsequent assessments have revised this diagnosis.

During a public event on Tuesday, Mayor Francisco de la Torre ruled out the possibility of an imminent structural collapse, but demanded the urgent preparation of an expert report to clarify the causes.

De la Torre refused to speculate on whether the building materials had accelerated the combustion.