Victim of fire
‘Where will I sleep tonight?’
It took a while for him to wake up. He’d had a late night, partying at Noorderzon. But in the end, it was the smell that woke up philosophy student Daan Juijn. It smelled like an apple pie that had been in the oven for three hours too long.
Next, Juijn became aware of a commotion in the hallway. That was weird, because when he looked at the clock he saw that it was barely a quarter past seven in the morning. He heard an unfamiliar voice and a slamming door. ‘When I went to check it out, I saw a confused roommate who’d just been told what had happened by a fire fighter. The casino was on fire!’
They had no idea how big the fire was or how fast it was spreading, but smoke was rapidly filling their house. They had to leave the premises as quickly as possible. ‘Something as simple as waking up our roommates became a complete uncoordinated mess.’
One person tried to wake their roommate by banging on the door and yelling, but forgot to wait for a response, and didn’t open the door. The student in the room slept on, blissfully unaware. In the meantime, Juijn quickly dressed and grabbed his wallet, laptop, and his contact lenses. ‘We’d all been standing around outside for at least half an hour when our roommate messaged us: “What an awful smell in the house!”‘
A sore throat
Initially, Juijn thought the fire was small, and that the wind just happened to blow the smoke straight towards their house. But once he got outside, he realised how serious the situation was. Juijn and his roommates were out on the street and wouldn’t be able to go back into their house any time soon. ‘We just started cycling around the block to watch the fire from different angles. There was something kind of exciting about it’, he says.
The student decided to have coffee and breakfast with a friend as the fire tore through the Holland Casino. ‘I was seriously beginning to worry about whether my house would still be there when I got back.’ Since he had taken his wallet, he was able to buy some basic things. ‘It kind of felt like being on vacation in my own country. Not because it felt like a holiday, but because I was constantly wondering things like, where am I going to eat? Where will I sleep tonight?’
Even when the fire was under control, he was not allowed to return to his house. He biked around town all day, drinking coffee here and there. ‘I’ve discovered a bunch of new coffee places.’
A police officer showed him back to his room after he had attended a meeting at the Martini Hotel, where he got ‘free egg rolls and beer’. Because the damage to his house wasn’t that severe, he decided to sleep in his own room. Apart from the awful smell, the house was remarkably clean. ‘I did have trouble falling asleep that night. You can’t help thinking things: my throat hurts, is that because of the smoke? I became kind of a hypochondriac.’
‘I was really lucky’
Aidan Flegg was dozing on the couch in the living room at the Nieuwe Ebbingestraat. Suddenly, the student of international human right law heard a loud bang coming from the top floor of the house. ‘I ran upstairs and saw that everything was on fire. I soon realised I wouldn’t be able to stop the fire myself.’
As he started thinking about everything that could be lost to the fire, he started to panic. Neither of his roommates were home, but he did have neighbours. ‘I ran outside and banged on as many doors as I could, yelling for help.’
Fortunately, a neighbour he didn’t know showed up with a fire extinguisher. Together they went back upstairs, Flegg leading the way. Ducking down below the thick layer of smoke, they tried to spray as much foam into the room as possible. After a while the fire brigade arrived, taking over. ‘When it was over, the fire brigade said we’d extinguished most of the fire ourselves. That man helped me out so much. When we got outside we hugged each other, and I never saw him again after that.’
His room burned down completely. The coat hangers had melted off his clothing rack. Flegg suffered from smoke inhalation and third degree burns on his hands. He was in the hospital for a week.
Uninhabitable
His roommate Maarten van Oosterhout still shudders to think about it. His room was on the same floor as Flegg’s. ‘Aidan’s actions probably prevented the entire top floor and the roof burning down. I was really lucky’, he says.
Van Oosterhout was allowed to go inside to grab some things, but the house was uninhabitable because of the smell. For the first three days he stayed with friends, after which he was able to go back to the house’s ground floor. ‘The fire brigade had sprayed so much foam that it had leaked through the ceiling. My room hadn’t been on fire, but everything was blackened with smoke and ash. I had to wash everything, and couldn’t properly return to my room for two weeks.’
Flegg himself had lost everything, except his laptop, which was in the living room. He was able to stay with family for a few weeks, and then got a job at café De Koffer. ‘I think they may have given me the job out of pity, because when I applied, my hands and nose were still covered in bandages.’
Scars
The cause of the fire was never properly determined. The fire brigade thinks it may have been a candle that fell over. Flegg is still sorry about the loss of certain things. ‘Not necessarily any expensive clothes or speakers or books, but mainly presents and personal items. I’ll never get those back. But I’ll be more careful in the future.’
Last summer, he returned to Scotland. Apart from a few scars, he made a complete recovery. ‘It was a terrible experience, but it certainly shaped me as a person. I was fortunate enough to have the support of my roommates, friends, and family. Because of that, it’s not necessarily a bad memory. It is now a story to tell.’