The Daily Star
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Two young firefighters — a newlywed whose wife had just announced her pregnancy, and another who was preparing for his wedding — were discovered dead Tuesday after battling a huge overnight in Beirut’s Mar Elias district, a security source said.
The source identified the fallen firefighters as Mohammad al-Mawla, 25, who was married three months ago, and Adel Saadeh, 28, who was preparing for his wedding.
“Yesterday was Mawla’s big day as his wife told him that they were going to have a baby,” a source familiar with the investigation told The Daily Star.
He said firefighters from the Beirut Fire Department intervened more than three hours after Civil Defense teams failed to contain the fire that broke out around 8:30 p.m. Monday at a printing press in the basement of Al-Turk building on Mar Elias Street.
However, Mawla rushed to fight the blaze before assessing the scene for danger, according to the preliminary probe. He was apparently caught in the flashover and was unable to escape, and suffocating.
When Saadeh rushed to rescue Mawla, he died from asphyxiation due to the flashover and mushrooming heat.
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