One dead, 20 injured after fire breaks out at a retirement home in Zaragoza

The fire reportedly started in a ground-floor room at around 11pm on Friday at the home in the city of Zaragoza (Aragón), local emergency services wrote on social network X.

The man died at the scene and at least 20 other people were taken to hospitals to be treated for smoke inhalation, they said.

The facility is home to 132 people. Emergency services workers and locals worked together to evacuate residents, some of whom had to be rescued through broken windows, according to local media reports.

Police have launched an investigation into the blaze, with local media saying an oxygen tank explosion could have triggered the fire.

The regional president of Aragón, Jorge Azcón, told relatives and medical staff during his visit to the hospital where the injured were being treated that ‘the government of Aragón is at the disposal of the families and the rest of those affected for whatever is necessary’.