An explosion broke windows in nearby neighborhoods and forced the complete closure of the Ezeiza-Cañuelas highway while more than twenty fire departments fought the flames. This explosion is added to the fire caused by a gas leak in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Caballito, recorded on Wednesday. Images from neighbors and television crews showed firefighters working floor by floor with mechanical ladders and self-contained breathing apparatus to rescue trapped residents. In just one week, the City of Buenos Aires and the metropolitan area recorded an industrial explosion of enormous impact in Ezeiza, a fire from a gas leak in the middle of the street in Caballito, a fatal incident in a building in Palermo, and now a large-scale fire in a textile shopping center in Villa Celina. Two people were injured, one with severe burns, before the City Fire Department and technical personnel managed to press the pipe and control the fire into the night. Days earlier, on November 6, a fire in a ten-story building in Palermo left a fatal toll. On Friday night, a violent explosion in the Carlos Spegazzini industrial park in Ezeiza led to a massive fire at a chemical plant that left more than twenty injured, including an executive who suffered a heart attack and a pregnant woman who was intoxicated and had to be hospitalized in intensive care. There, the rupture of a Metrogas pipe during Edesur work on Riglos Street at 300 generated a tongue of fire up to 12 meters high, which damaged facades, vehicles, and forced the evacuation of nine people from a neighboring building. Anyway, the area was restricted due to the risk of collapse due to structural damage to the building. The new fire adds to a chain of incidents that, in a few days, put emergency services under pressure and once again exposed the fragility of urban infrastructure to fire. According to the first reports, the fire started in two warehouses located on the ground floor and basement of the building, for reasons still under investigation, and quickly spread to the first floor, destroying at least four stores and affecting a vehicle parked on the sidewalk. The magnitude of the incident generated a black column of smoke that could be seen for several kilometers and forced the closure of adjacent streets and the interruption of traffic in nearby accesses. Neighbors denounced that the first fire department took nearly half an hour to arrive, while the flames advanced fueled by highly flammable materials, such as nylon, cotton, and fabric rolls stored in the warehouses. Firefighters from Villa Celina worked at the site, with support from departments in San Justo and other local barracks, who faced additional difficulties due to low water pressure in the hydrants. The fire started early in the morning in an apartment on Scalabrini Ortiz Avenue at 2300 and forced the evacuation of the entire consortium.
