An accidental electrical fault in a kitchen appliance in unit 86 sparked a devastating fire in Valencia. Police investigators confirmed this as the precise origin of the blaze that February 22 left the Nou Campanar building a smoking skeleton within hours, killing ten neighbors including two two-year-olds and eight days old, and injuring fifteen people, mostly firefighters overcome by smoke and flames while trying to contain the disaster.
That was the initial conclusion of fire investigators from the Police Scientific, as had been reported by Levante-EMV, the same editorial group behind the coverage, and it has now been verified in the technical report prepared by the Valencia National Police homicide unit as part of the ongoing inquiry.
As this newspaper has noted from the start, all evidence pointed to a kitchen-based electrical fault as the fire’s ignition. When the Scientific Police team, formed by officers from the Valencia Provincial Brigade and the Madrid-based General Commissariat, entered the damaged building on Friday, February 23, their leading suspicion was that the fire began inside the home. The kitchen, the room nearest to the balcony corner of unit 86 where the first flames were seen, was documented as the origin in videos recorded by locals and passersby. [Source: investigative files, corroborated by police reports]
Fire that came from inside
Indeed, the police knew from the outset, based on marks visible in the kitchen despite the fire’s intense damage and smoke, that the blaze started inside the dwelling and not on the balcony, contrary to some early media reports based on a TV broadcast from a national channel. Some of those reports claimed the focal point was the exterior mechanism of the awning, housed outside the home, citing unnamed sources close to the investigation. [Source: police statements and contemporaneous coverage]
Beyond the scene evidence, a detail of interest emerged. The same night of the fire, while homicide and other police judicial units conducted door-to-door checks to determine who had vanished, detectives located the tenant of door 86 in Madrid. He explained that he had been away for work for several days and that he had not left any appliance connected, except for items that never lose power, such as the refrigerator or the water heater.
Two precedents, both in the kitchen
In exclusive reporting, it was also revealed that two years earlier the same tenant had experienced problems with the appliance in question and had to replace it due to “sparks” emanating from the outlet. After the replacement, which was placed near the balcony glass, the tenant says the issues ceased at his home. He also notes that similar electrical irregularities occurred elsewhere in the building, which comprises 137 residences spread across two towers of 14 and 9 stories. [Source: prior incident records, neighbor testimonies]
Another earlier episode, in 2012, involved a different unit, door 51, where a fire originated in a kitchen outlet. The tenant then, who now administers the damaged building, told this paper that a mobile charger had been plugged into the counter outlet but the phone remained unplugged. The safety implications raised by these two cases prompted questions about electrical infrastructure in the building. [Source: historical building records]
What remains undisclosed is which specific device caused the latest fire and why. Pilar Bernabé, the government delegate for the Valencia region, spoke to the media yesterday to summarize the police conclusion: the fire began inside an appliance in the kitchen and happened fortuitously.
How the fire unfolded
The exact cause of the electrical anomaly has not been disclosed, though it is believed to involve overheating that produced a latent fire building up smoke and gases without visible flames. The rising temperature, driven by pressure within the room, caused window glass to crack. That moment becomes the critical turning point. The fire fed on a sudden influx of oxygen, flames surged, and control was lost as it expanded rapidly.
The first video of the Campanar blaze captured two pivotal factors that fueled its rapid spread: gusting winds reaching up to 60 km/h that day and the interior insulating plastic (polyethylene) used on the façade panels. Those elements vividly show the initial bursts of fire and smoke erupting from inside the kitchen, reinforcing the team’s leading hypothesis about the fire’s interior origin. [Source: incident footage analysis]
In sum, investigators point to a sequence where an overheated appliance ignited a smoldering fire, the smoke and heat built up internal pressure, the protective elements failed to contain it, and external conditions then propelled an uncontrollable blaze. The tragedy reveals how fragile building safety can be when a single faulty device ignites a chain reaction through a tightly packed, high-rise environment. [Attribution: police reports and investigative briefings]