Six dead after fire tears through the OXY building in central Brussels
Six people died in a fire that swept through the OXY building in central Brussels, Brussels emergency services confirmed. The death toll makes it one of the deadliest building fires the capital has seen in years.
In 30 seconds
- Six people died in a fire at the OXY building in central Brussels, according to Brussels emergency services.
- Firefighters brought the blaze under control and recovered the six bodies from the building afterwards.
- The Brussels public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation; the cause of the fire has not been established.
- Additional people were treated for smoke inhalation, according to Belgian media accounts of the fire service's statements.
The OXY building is a structure in central Brussels that was the site of a fatal fire in which six people died, according to Brussels emergency services. The response was led by the Brussels Fire and Emergency Medical Aid Service (SIAMU in French / DBDMH in Dutch), the region's single fire brigade, which covers all 19 communes of the Brussels-Capital Region. The investigation falls to the Brussels public prosecutor's office (parquet de Bruxelles), which in fatal fires appoints an independent fire expert and may place the file under an investigating magistrate (juge d'instruction). Victim identification in multi-fatality incidents is handled by the federal police's Disaster Victim Identification unit. Building fire safety in Brussels is governed by federal basic standards (normes de base / basisnormen), applied and enforced regionally and at communal level through permits and inspections.
Background
Brussels has faced repeated scrutiny of fire safety in older and multi-occupancy buildings. Fatal fires in converted or precariously occupied housing have recurred over the past decade, each time reopening the same questions: whether inspections happen often enough, whether occupancy exceeds what the structure was permitted for, and whether the split of responsibility between federal norms, regional enforcement and communal permitting leaves gaps. The Brussels fire brigade's unions have also repeatedly raised staffing and resourcing concerns for a service covering 19 communes and roughly 1.2 million residents in one of Europe's denser urban cores. Nationally, the 1967 Innovation department store fire in Brussels, which killed more than 250 people, remains the reference point that shaped modern Belgian fire regulation.
What to do
Residents of older or subdivided Brussels buildings should check that smoke detectors are present and functioning — they are legally required in Brussels rental housing — and that escape routes and stairwells are unobstructed. Tenants with concerns about fire safety in their building can raise them with their commune's urbanism or housing inspection service, or with the Brussels regional housing inspectorate. Anyone displaced by the fire should be directed to the commune's social services and CPAS/OCMW for emergency accommodation.
The Belgian angle
The Brussels-Capital Region carries both the operational and the political weight here. SIAMU/DBDMH, the region's fire and emergency medical service, ran the intervention; the region and the communes share responsibility for building permits, occupancy checks and fire-safety inspections. A fatal fire of this scale typically triggers scrutiny of that inspection chain, of brigade staffing and equipment, and — where the building housed vulnerable or precarious occupants — of housing policy. Neighbouring residents and businesses face closures and access restrictions while the structure is assessed and evidence secured.
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