A huge fire broke out at Copenhagen’s 17th-century former stock exchange, one of the Danish capital’s most famous landmarks, engulfing the historic building’s roof and toppling its distinctive spire.
Eyewitnesses described shock and sadness in the city, with smoke visible from afar.
Denmark’s deputy prime minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, described the event as “our own Notre-Dame moment.”
Firefighters and volunteers managed to rescue a large part of the stock exchange’s collection of artworks, but some artefacts will likely have been damaged by the flames.
“My feeling is that we have saved a lot”, said Jakob Vedsted, director of Copenhagen fire and rescue services. “But there is a large Christian IV sculpture that weighs several tons, we haven’t been able to get it out”.
Some 120 people were working to contain the fire.
Firefighting efforts are still continuing, with officials expecting the fire to be under control within the next hours.
Emergency services are still battling flames in part of the old stock exchange building in Copenhagen.
Copenhagen fire department chief Jakob Vedsted Andersen told reporters that parts of the roof had collapsed and the fire spread to several floors, Reuters reported.
Some 120 people were working to contain the fire but only around 40% of it was under control, Vedsted said.
He also said that the firefighting operation would go on for at least 24 hours.
Fire fighters are responding to a big fire in the historic Old Stock Exchange building in Copenhagen. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
'My feeling is that we have saved a lot', fire and rescue services chief says
Philip Oltermann
Firefighters and volunteers managed to rescue a large part of the stock exchange’s collection of artworks, but some artefacts will likely have been damaged by the flames, officials said at a press conference at noon.
“My feeling is that we have saved a lot”, said Jakob Vedsted, director of Copenhagen fire and rescue services. “But there is a large Christian IV sculpture that weighs several tons, we haven’t been able to get it out”.
Christian IV ruled as King of Denmark and Norway, and duke of Holstein and Schleswig, from 1588 until 1648, his nigh-on 60-year reign making him the longest-serving monarch in Scandinavian history. A statue of Christian IV outside the Stock Exchange was unveiled in 2019.
Vedstedt said the rescue effort had been facilitated by the fact that many of the artworks had been recently transported because of the renovation works on the building.
Brian Mikkelsen, the head of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, said that it’s the most tragic day of his life, and that he himself helped get pictures out of the burning building, Berlingske reported.
A lot was saved but not everything, Mikkelsen said.
Danish emergency services have said that they do not assess that smoke from the fire is more dangerous than ordinary building smoke, but that citizens should keep their distance and seek medical attention if they experience breathing difficulties.
Firefighters spokesman Jakob Vedsted Andersen said the fire, which began this morning in the copper roof of the Old Stock Exchange, spread to much of the building and the roof, parts of which also collapsed, and destroyed the building’s interior, the AP reported.
Up to 90 members of an army unit were also deployed from a nearby base to cordon off the area and “secure valuables.”
As well as being a historic building in its own right, the Copenhagen Stock Exchange also holds one of Denmark’s most valuable collections of art, which rescue workers and volunteers scrambled to save from the flames this morning.
Most notably, the first-floor collection includes the iconic painting “From the Copenhagen Stock Exchange” by 19th-century Danish-Norwegian artist Peder Severin Krøyer. Photos from the site showed eight people, including one man wearing a cycling helmet, ushering the 254cm by 409cm painting to safety.
Finished in 1895, the painting shows a long line of stock exchange people in coattails standing in the building’s hall. It was paid for by the people portrayed in the picture, with those in the front row having paid 550 Danish crowns to be most visible and cheaper rates for those at the back. The artist was handsomely reimbursed, with the total fee amounting to the contemporary equivalent of around 1.55m Danish crowns.
Kasper Nielsen, of auction house Bruun Rasmussen, told Ekstra Bladet newspaper that Krøyer’s picture was worth millions of Danish crowns. “It is a piece of Danish history - both the architectural and the artworks”, he said. “If the entire Stock Exchange – God forbid – burns down, then we are looking at the loss of top-end, inalienable cultural heritage”
The painting is not the only piece of art of high value inside the Stock Exchange building. Nielsen told Ekstra Bladet that the total value of the collection amounted to hundreds of millions of Danish crowns.
People remove paintings and other objects from the stock exchange Photograph: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images
Rescuers carry a painting from the scene Photograph: Ritzau/Alamy Live News/Alamy Live News.
Tobias, a reader, writes in: “I witnessed the very first moments of the fire at Børsen this morning.”
I cycled past the Børsen building with my kids on the way to school this morning at around 7:30 am. We heard the fire alarm going off in the building, but there was no smoke yet. Just a few moments later the first fire engines came rushing round the corner of Christiansborg Palace towards Børsen.
The main Copenhagen fire station is quite close so they were on the scene really fast. But only fifteen minutes later after I had dropped my kids off at school the fire was already huge and smoke was hanging over the city. The building didn’t stand a chance it seems. Everyone at work is quite upset today. It really is an iconic building for Copenhageners.
Here are more images from Copenhagen this morning.
Smoke rises out of the Old Stock Exchange, Boersen, in Copenhagen. Photograph: Emil Helms/AP
Firefighters work at the main entrance of the historic Boersen stock exchange building which is on fire in central Copenhagen. Photograph: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images
The scaffolding around the Old Stock Exchange building made it harder for the emergency services to get through to the flames, while the copper roof was preserving the heat, the Copenhagen fire department said, Reuters reported.
