Huge fire in Fellsmúli yesterday

A large fire broke out at the N1 car service at Fellsmúli 24 at six o’clock late yesterday afternoon. All available firefighting teams were called to the scene and it was clear from the beginning that there was a large-scale fire.

Visitors and employees of stores left as soon as the fire was noticed, but on the ground floor to the east of the building are stores including Stout and Slippfélagið. It is not known that people were injured and it is not believed that anyone was in the space that burned, but employees had already left the car service.

People too close to the scene

“There were a lot of explosions here earlier and we didn’t know exactly what was going on. People were gathering at the premises, so we wanted to close it down,” said Friðjón Ingi, commissioner of the Police yesterday.

“It went well closing the area off and only a few outsiders have entered the area, but they have responded to police turning them away from the area,” he added.

Grensásvegur was fenced off up to Miklabraut, Grensásvegur to Fellsmúli and Fellsmúli up to Síðumúli.

A lot of water was needed for the firefighters’ work

The police also closed off the roundabout in Skeifan where fire hydrants were in use.

“The fire department is using all the fire hydrants around here. It needs a lot of water.”

He said he did not know what caused the explosions but said they did not go far beyond the building.

The stores will close in the coming days

Þröstur Ingvason, manager of sales at Slippfélagið, tells Morgunblaðið that it is clear that the store will not open in the next few days.

Employees were in the store when the fire broke out. Ingvarsson went to the scene to watch and he thinks there might be water damage in the store because of the operation, but there was also a power outage.

The operation went long into the night and firefighters had to fight to ensure that the fire would not spread on the roof.