Hamburg: Major fire in Tostedt - gym burns down again

A gymnasium in Tostedt that was scheduled for demolition burned down completely on Tuesday evening. Classes at three schools will be cancelled on Wednesday.

In Tostedt (Harburg district), a gymnasium caught fire on Tuesday evening for the second time in five years. The building at the Düvelshöpen school center was already fully ablaze when the fire brigade arrived, as local reporters and the "Hamburger Abendblatt" report.

The emergency services were alerted at around 9 p.m. "When the first emergency services arrived, the glow of the fire was already visible from afar. It was possible to approach the building by sight, which means there was a massive column of smoke and the first flames were visible," explained Nils Renke, press spokesman for the fire service, to a reporter on site.

The two-story gymnasium, which was already being demolished after a first fire in 2021, was fully ablaze. The flames shot several meters high into the night sky. Around 150 emergency personnel from seven local fire departments as well as additional forces from Buchholz with a turntable ladder fought the fire.

The enormous heat development had already caused windows to burst at the neighboring secondary school. "The roof shelter of the school's sports hall had already sunk," Renke continued. However, the fire brigade was able to prevent the flames from spreading to other buildings.

After the first fire in 2021, which reportedly caused damage of around 100,000 euros and young people were identified as the arsonists, the district decided not to renovate the hall but to demolish it. Preparations for the demolition were already underway. "The demolition of this building has essentially been underway for a few weeks and now it has gone up in flames," explained Peter Dörsam, mayor of the Tostedt collective municipality.

According to current information, no one was injured. The fire-fighting operations are expected to continue into the early hours. Classes at all three nearby schools - secondary school, middle school and high school - will be cancelled on Wednesday. The cause of the fire is currently still unclear.