Fire unavailability: why Malakhovka is not coping with fires
At the end of February, a private house in which a large family lived caught fire in the village of Malakhovka, Lyubertsy. The owners noticed the fire and called rescuers — fortunately, the fire station is very close, literally two minutes away. However, in the end, not only this house burned down, but also the neighboring one, which belongs to another large family. Residents are confident that such devastating consequences could have been avoided, and they are appealing to the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, to take this story under his control. From the first time, the owners of the houses were refused to initiate criminal proceedings, which they strongly disagree with. Izvestia dealt with the situation.
Why are residents demanding a criminal case?
The house of Anastasia and Alexander Konoplyannikov and their four children on Fizkulturnaya Street caught fire after 20:00 on Tuesday, February 25. First, there was a sudden surge in mains voltage, and smoke appeared in one of the rooms on the second floor. The fire appeared very quickly — while Anastasia was calling the fire department, a full-fledged fire started. Firefighters were called at 20:19, and at 20:29 (according to official data) they were at the scene.
This is the first complaint of local residents, because the fire station is located two minutes away, less than a kilometer from the fire site.
Anastasia's statement to the head of the Lyubertsy Investigative Department (available to Izvestia) It is said that when the staff of the Ministry of Emergency Situations arrived at the place, the first thing they learned was the area of the house. When they heard the answer — 150 square meters, they said: there is not enough water. They unfolded one sleeve and began to water the roof from the ground. The water in the cistern ran out really quickly. Soon two more fire trucks arrived, but they were not engaged in simultaneous extinguishing.
"The water was supplied from the machine from only one sleeve by switching. To all the questions, ours and the neighbors, the firefighters answered that there was no source of water supply, there were no hydrants," Anastasia writes. She notes that residents of Malakhovka have repeatedly demanded that fire hydrants be installed in the village, but this has not been done. In one of the videos from the fire site available to Izvestia, an employee of the Ministry of Emergency Situations also makes an observation about an insufficiently developed outdoor fire water supply system, who urges local residents to contact the village or city administration on this issue.
When the water ran out, Anastasia continues, the firefighters allegedly just stood there and did nothing. By that time, the fire had spread to the second house, which belongs to Olga Kulakovskaya's family. This is also confirmed by video from the scene of the fire: four firefighters are standing, but not engaged in extinguishing the house, although it has already been completely engulfed in flames. On this day, a message appeared on Malakhovka's social networks asking them to call 112, because the fire was such that it began to threaten the entire village, located among tall pines.
Only an hour and a half after the start of the fire, according to local residents, the water supply from the hydrant began, which turned out to be on the territory of a neighboring school. It is located 250-300 m from the fire.
"If firefighters had immediately started laying hoses and organizing water supply, the fire could have been localized at the initial stage," Anastasia Konoplyannikova said in a statement.
One more nuance: 200 m from the houses there is Malakhov Lake — the one from which Alexander the Great's helmet was pulled out in the movie "Gentlemen of Fortune". However, they did not take water from the lake either.
Two houses burned down completely, with all the personal belongings of two large families. Neighbors unfortunately believe that the cause was the negligence of firefighters.
Two mothers with many children also sent an open letter directly to Alexander Bastrykin, asking him to open a criminal case on negligence. It separately states that there were a lot of witnesses to the incident — about 20 local residents who saw how firefighters were working.
The appeal says that the investigator "did a great job, collected material and prepared a draft for initiating a criminal case," but it was allegedly not approved by the GSU in the Moscow region.
How did the firefighters explain the incident?
Izvestia sent inquiries to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Moscow Region. This department did not comment on the circumstances of the fire, redirecting to the Moscow regional State Institution Mosoblpozhspas, whose divisions were engaged in extinguishing the fire. It should be noted that it is subordinate to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but fire station No. 231 on Shosseynaya Street in Malakhovka, which is located two minutes from the fire, really belongs to Mosoblpozhspas. At the time of publication of the material, this agency had not responded to Izvestia's request.
Meanwhile, the firefighters provided explanations as part of a pre-investigation check, the results of which were reported by the victims. In particular, it is alleged that access to the fire hydrant on the territory of gymnasium No. 46 was allegedly restricted, and security did not open the gates immediately. Local residents refute this statement, claiming that firefighters first approached the school only at 21:37, more than an hour after the arrival of the first crew, and before that they constantly drove from the fire site to the fire station to fill cars with water. Videos taken by local residents partially confirm this — the first connection to the hydrant took place around 22:00. The victims of the fire emphasize that on the video from the school surveillance cameras, which are attached to the inspection materials, it is possible to track how fire trucks first drive past the school building, and only after an hour and a half rescuers approach the gate.
Izvestia also sent a request to gymnasium No. 46 with questions about the time of the first appeal to the school security.
The Malakhov lake, firefighters say, could not have been a source of water intake, as it was shallow. This information is categorically denied by the victims of the fire. Photos in open sources taken recently also do not indicate shallowing of the lake. Izvestia found pictures of the reservoir on Instagram (owned by the Meta Corporation, an extremist organization recognized in Russia), taken in April — early March and in mid-February. The video of one of the users who swims in the ice hole on March 1 shows that the water in the lake is there and clearly has not gone so far that it cannot be reached by car, and the ice is strong, but not so thick that it cannot be broken.
According to Olga Kulakovskaya, two more points pointed out by the firefighters were problems with de—energizing the premises and turning off the gas: allegedly, the houses were powered with electricity and gas not only from the common networks that were blocked after the fire started, but also from other sources.
— The gas service arrived at the scene 20 minutes after the start of the fire, turned off the gas and stayed there for two hours, as did the power engineers. Gas and electricity were cut off, I talked to the gas workers," Olga emphasizes in a conversation with Izvestia. — And the firefighter who gave these statements arrived much later than the gas workers.
Izvestia sent inquiries to Mosoblenergo and Mosoblgaz.
Nevertheless, following the results of the pre-investigation check, it was decided not to initiate a criminal case. Residents demand to review it, as they are confident that the evidence collected is sufficient for this.
Will the case be reviewed
Meanwhile, the GSU of the Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region told Izvestia that the decision to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings had already been canceled, and a second procedural check was being conducted on the possible negligence of officials who extinguished the fire.
—As part of the verification measures, a fire technical examination was appointed, employees of two fire brigades were interviewed, representatives of a school in whose territory it was not possible to connect to a fire hydrant," the GSU of the Investigative Committee for the Moscow region reported.
Daria Sazontova, a lawyer and junior partner at Belsky & Partners Law Firm, noted that the criminal procedure law does not prevent additional pre-investigation checks and, moreover, there are no restrictions on the number of such cancellations and additional checks.
— One of the problems of regulating pre—investigation checks is the very limited time for making a final decision - three days, which can be extended to ten or 30. However, even such a period often turns out to be insufficient to conduct a full—fledged and comprehensive audit," the Izvestia interlocutor noted.
According to her, pre-investigation checks can often be conducted poorly due to the so-called futility of the material for further investigation, which leads to a long series of refusals to initiate proceedings and cancellations, which can drag on until the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution expires.
— But, of course, there are cases of successful appeal against the refusal to initiate proceedings. During the additional verification period, the applicant must use all the opportunities provided by law to protect his rights and legitimate interests — to request additional explanations, attach documents, and appeal against illegal actions or omissions of the persons conducting the inspection," said Daria Sazontova.
What is the situation with the fire brigades
A retired firefighter from a Central Russian region told Izvestia on condition of anonymity that there have been a lot of problems in the Ministry of Emergency Situations in recent years, and the main ones are related to staff shortages.
— Now the courier of the city delivery service receives more than the fighter of the fire department, — he told "Izvestia". — There are a lot of vacancies: the salary is small, and the "carrot" in the form of social guarantees is very small. There are regional surcharges in Moscow and the Moscow region, but they are not very large either.
According to him, with a small salary, firefighters are very often deprived of their usual schedule after three days — they constantly need to come for additional training, demonstration deployments of fire brigades in front of the media and regional leaders. The case of the fire chief in Naberezhnye Chelny is significant in this sense: he was fired for combining his position with work in a commercial structure for many years.: in fact, for a side job.
Another source from the field of fire safety also emphasizes that there are not enough personnel in the units, and the salary is small — 30-50 thousand per month, depending on the region. At the same time, there are usually no problems with the equipment. The information of firefighters is also confirmed by data on vacancies on the websites of the regional departments of the Ministry of Emergency Situations — there really are a lot of job offers.
The sources did not give a detailed assessment of the circumstances of the fire in Malakhovka, stressing that this should not be done without knowing the details. However, one of them noticed that the arrival of one "fire escape" (that is, one car) to such a call looked rather strange.
Commenting on the difficulties with taking water from an open source, Sergey Seregin, adviser to the president of the National Union of Organizations in the Field of Fire Safety (NSOPB), points out that this can be done without a pier or through ice — there are usually no difficulties with this. Firefighters also have information about the location of hydrants: it is always estimated which sources are on the way from the unit to the place of ignition.
Sergey Seregin notes that the results of the inspection will be influenced, among other things, by factors such as the fire load on the building, whether there are many flammable materials, whether there are fire breaks, whether the fire was detected in time, whether there was wind and other related factors. At the same time, he does not exclude the possibility that it will be possible to prove the guilt of firefighters in the destruction of property, although he is inclined to believe that it is easier to do this through the court, since there are no dead or injured.
"There are court decisions in favor of the victims of the fire in Russia, however, as well as judicial refusals to compensate for damages," the source told Izvestia.
Residents of Malakhovka add that the fire situation on Fizkulturnaya Street is not the first in the area. In 2023, three residential buildings burned down at once, and only the fourth was defended, although the houses were located three to four minutes away from the fire station. Then, local residents say, firefighters allegedly also referred to the lack of water. And on April 23, a video of another fire appeared online — in the early morning, a store burned a kilometer from another part. The flames engulfed the entire building and the neighboring building, but there were no firefighters nearby.
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