After four hours, the fire was brought under control in a shopping center inside a 12-story building in Lushnje.
All residents have already been evacuated, while the fires have been isolated.
Out of 42 people affected by asphyxiation due to smoke, 3 are children while 2 are police officers.
Fortunately, all the persons are out of danger for their lives and are receiving appropriate help in the hospital of Lushnje as well as that of Durrës.
Preliminarily, it is suspected that the fire started in an air conditioner inside a business on the 3rd floor of the shopping center, next to which there was also a bar with wooden cladding, helping to spread the flames.
Interior Minister Taulant Balla said that it was the intervention of the RENEA special forces that enabled the evacuation of the residents trapped in the apartments above the shopping center, since the firefighting forces of Lushnje were unprepared for the event.
The evacuation of some citizens in the first minutes of the fire was done with the auto-crane of a private business, since the Lushnje fire department did not have ladders or buckets.