Paris fire kills 14, three teenage girls held

PARIS - A fire killed at least 14 people in a suspected arson attack in a high-rise apartment block in Paris on Sunday, the third major fire in the French capital in just over a week, police said.

The police detained three teenage girls over the blaze, which they said was probably caused by a fire started deliberately in a letter box in the hallway of the 18-storey building during the night, sources close to the inquiry said.

Three children were among the dead and four people were critically injured. Most of the victims were killed by smoke and fumes that rapidly swept through the building in the southern suburbs of the city, police and fire officials said.

"They are criminal acts and will be punished as such," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told TF1 television.

Fire officials said the death toll was likely to rise.

Many victims were choked or suffocated by the fumes in extremely high temperatures after opening their doors. People who stayed in their apartments were safe.

"The people who stayed inside were fine. It's the people who rushed out and ran into temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius, smoke and asphyxia, that gave rise to the terrible toll," said deputy fire chief Alain Antonini.

Unlike the two other fires in the past 10 days, Sunday's blaze did not sweep through rundown housing for immigrants but was in a low cost social apartment block known as an HLM housing about 800 people in 110 flats.

About 160 firefighters tackled the fire and quickly brought it under control.

"We brought nothing out with us," one resident, who gave her name only as Dany, told reporters.

Officials said President Jacques Chirac discussed the blaze with an aide by telephone from hospital, where the head of state has been taken for a blood vessel problem affecting his sight.

Seven people were killed in a rundown building used by immigrants last week and a fire which killed 17 African immigrants three days earlier. Twenty-four people were killed in a fire in another rundown building housing immigrants in April.

The fires have raised questions over safety and the treatment of immigrants, and Chirac has demanded action to prevent further such tragedies.

French police evicted dozens of squatters from two rundown buildings in Paris on Friday, acting on a government pledge to close unsafe apartments after the recent fires.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin confirmed to LCI television that other squats would be evacuated but gave no details.

The French capital has about 60 unsafe squats and more than 10,000 flats in the greater Paris region are considered unhygienic, officials say.

In the greater Paris region, some 300,000 families, many of them immigrants, are waiting to be allocated permanent social housing. Many live in tiny temporary homes for years.

- REUTERS