On February 5, 2014, at 7:20 a.m., one of the custodians working at the Iron Mountain warehouse in Barracas heard the early fire alarm. Private security personnel canceled the alert instead of calling the 911 emergency number. This is probably because it malfunctioned and triggered multiple false alarms.
Almost 12 years later, another warehouse belonging to the same company caught fire again. There were no casualties at this time. Mayor Ezeiza said that among the companies affected by the chemical factory explosion was Gastón Granados, whose factory is located in the Carlos Spegazzini Industrial Park.
In 2014, the same employee shut off the emergency system, which activated the sprinklers seven times over the next 40 minutes. It was not a false alarm or a failure of the fire protection system. On the contrary, the smoke that the sensors detected and sounded the alarm on was real, caused by the burning of paper files stored in a warehouse built at the corner of Azala and Joveranos in Barracas at the beginning of the last century.
When federal police firefighters arrived on the scene to extinguish the fire, the blaze had been burning for more than 40 minutes, engulfing highly flammable paper files. An expert report carried out by the judicial inquiry determined that although the sprinkler system could not have extinguished the fire, it would have slowed its spread.
An hour later, the walls of Hoveranos collapsed on the day of its chief, Inspector Leonardo. Deputy Inspector Anai Garnica. The first corporals were Eduardo Adrian Conesa and Damian Veris. Corporal Maximiliano Martinez. and Juan Matias Monticelli, a volunteer firefighter from the Villa Dominico Volunteer Fire Department headquarters, and Jose Luis Méndez Araujo, a volunteer firefighter. Sebastian Campos, from the Vuelta de Rocha Volunteer Fire Department. Rescuer Pedro Baricola of the Buenos Aires Civil Defense Force. All nine people died instantly. Meanwhile, firefighter Facundo Ambrosi died on February 17 after being hospitalized for almost 12 days due to severe injuries from the thick bricks of the collapsed wall.
Firefighters Daniel Díaz Gauna and Juan Manuel López Gaggiotti were also seriously injured. Meanwhile, a further 18 firefighters and rescue workers sustained varying degrees of injuries.
Almost 12 years after the tragic fire at the Iron Mountain warehouse, no start date has yet been set for the oral trial against more than 20 defendants for the unlawful killing of nine firefighters and rescuers from the city’s Civil Defense Directorate.
In April 2023, Fabiana Palmagini, the judge in charge of the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 18, accepted a request for judicial escalation submitted by representatives of the Ministry of Public Affairs and ordered that those accused of the tragedy be brought to an oral trial.
However, two and a half years after the judge referred the case to oral hearing, a date for the first trial has not yet been set. Lawyer Javier Morra, who represents the families of nine of the 10 victims, said all evidence had been submitted, there were no expert reports pending and no appeals to be resolved.
Twelve days after Judge Parmagini ordered more than 20 defendants to undergo an oral trial, another fire broke out on the same property. Unlike the February 2014 tragedy, there were no casualties in the April 25, 2023 fire.
The spate of fires at Iron Mountain warehouses was not limited to the 2023 incident. An explosion was recorded in the past few hours at a chemical company operating in the Carlos Spegazzini Industrial Park, damaging one of Iron Mountain’s warehouses in the park. This is the third incident at the company’s facility in less than 12 years.
“Here we have a company called Iron Mountain. It was a very famous company in the capital, but everyone remembers it because of the fire. It moved to Ezeiza, and it also suffered from the fire. It is a company that deals with issues related to government,” said Mayor Gastón Granados, referring to the company that was at the center of the incident. The tragedy of Barakas, February 5, 2014.
The investigation to establish responsibility for the new fire in the Ezeiza area has only just begun and there is no certainty.
However, the judicial file of the Barracas tragedy includes a technical report on how the deadly fire occurred.
In February 2015, experts from the Compensation Division of the Argentine Federal Police and the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) published research findings that the fire may have been intentionally set. However, an expert opinion submitted in mid-2016 by engineers from the National University of Technology (UTN) ruled out the presumption of intentional arson.
After analyzing various reports, testimonies and physical evidence, judicial investigators would have determined the existence of a series of irregularities that created favorable conditions for the fire to occur.
Engineers and firefighters inspected the firefighting equipment and discovered that the cistern that supplies water to the sprinklers was empty. The replacement device may also have failed.
In an inspection conducted several months after the tragedy, engineers determined that the water stop valve that supplies the sprinklers with water from the utility network had been shut off. The pressurization system that pumps pressurized water also did not work due to a malfunction in the pump mechanism.
Additionally, the engineer would have established a violation of the so-called “fire load,” which establishes the existence of free space between the stacked boxes and the sprinkler.
This evidence and the opinions of other experts formed the basis of a resolution issued by the Sixth Chamber of the National Court of Criminal and Correctional Appeals in December 2022, which confirmed the indictment of the 17 defendants by majority vote.
In the resolution, Chamberlains Ignacio Rodríguez Barrera and Ricardo Matias Pinto rescinded the dismissal of the three defendants. One of these defendants was charged, but the other two were found without merit. The third member of the court mentioned above voted in dissent.
Two months later, when Judge Parmagini accepted the request for trial, more defendants were included. As a result, more than 20 defendants will face trial for responsibility in this tragedy.
According to judicial sources, the defendants include one of the warehouse managers, a manager, and the company’s health and safety officer. The general manager and technical director of the company had to ensure that the fire extinguishing system at the Barracas factory worked correctly.
The list of defendants was completed by four employees of the Buenos Aires City Government’s Directorate General of Inspections (DGGyC), who inspected the affected properties on various occasions for occupancy, safety, and hygiene without reporting any system failures.
Also named as suspects are the head of the General Activities Department of the Buenos Aires government, the director of industry and other regions, the Director General of Inspection and Management, the head of the Office of Operational Planning (later renamed the Deputy Directorate of Operational Planning), and the inspector general of the Federal Police Supervision of Fire Protection.
The investigation into this tragedy was carried out by the 37th Bureau of the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Romina Monteleone, and Joaquín Gasset, a colleague of the First Attorney General’s Office of the National Court of Criminal and Correctional Appeals. Oral proceedings will be conducted by Oral Court No. 18.
The firefighters took shelter behind a collapsed wall and collapsed to their deaths. At that moment they were preparing a plan of attack against the fire. According to operational protocols, it was the safest location. But an expert report on file said the fire twisted columns, which caused the roof to collapse and pull the wall down onto firefighters and rescue workers.
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