New Year’s fireworks cause fire damage and injuries
Arson and violence mars year-end celebrations
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New Year’s fireworks set fires and caused a number of eye injuries on Saturday night and early Sunday.
In Siilinjärvi in Northern Savo, a rocket set the roof of a house on fire at about nine in the evening on Saturday. The fire was soon contained and none of the young people celebrating in the house were injured.
Two fires in Oulu are believed to have been set deliberately. An apartment in a building in Oulu was completely gutted. Witnesses said that they had seen a flash that looked like a firework going off, followed by the rapid spread of the blaze.
A car shelter in the Talvikangas district caught fire on Sunday morning, seriously damaging the vehicles inside. Heat from the fire also damaged cars parked nearby.
A storage building of a packaging company in Viiala in the south-central town of Akaa was destroyed by a fire that broke out shortly before midnight Saturday.
The blaze, causing hundreds of thousands of euros in damage, is believed to have been caused by the careless handling of fireworks.
Fireworks also caused a number of eye injuries. In one case, a five-year-old girl in Helsinki was hit in the eye by the stick of a skyrocket as it came down after it had been launched. The girl was wearing safety goggles, but the stick slipped between the goggles and the girl’s forehead, damaging her eyeball.
About a dozen eye injuries were reported nationwide. Hospitals said nevertheless, that there were relatively few such injuries this time.
Other injuries and at least two deaths were reported in connection with seasonal revelry.
In Jyväskylä a 27-year-old man became the victim of a homicide. Several people have been detained.
Already on Friday night an 18-year-old man was stabbed to death in Äänekoski. Police detained three men in their early 20s on suspicion of murder.
Helsingin Sanomat
