“The battery is in the steering wheel, which is an iron pipe, so we just detonated a pipe bomb there. The whole house shook and the curtains flew out the window. Everything went black here in seconds “, says Birna Gylfadóttir, but she and her family suffered a fire in their house in Kirkjuhvoli in Eyrarbakki last Sunday evening. The cause was that an electric scooter type Tt-2t Electric Scooter exploded in a laundry room, while the bike was being loaded, the bike caught fire and everything was saturated with smoke in a few moments.
DFS reported the case this morning. Birna said in an interview with DV that she strongly wants to encourage people to be careful when charging electric scooters. “People plugged it in next to their bed.” People can die from it and it could have happened to us,” she said, but no one was injured in the fire. Besides Birna, her husband Ívar Björgvinsson and their three sons live in the house. In an interview with DFS, Birna describes the sequence of events following the explosion as follows:
“My wife and I ran through smoke and fire, Ívar had to crawl across the floor with a fire extinguisher to put out the fire, such was the smoke, and I had to get the boys out. I wasn’t going to be able to wake up Ivan Gauta and get him out but I managed to get him to move forward with all the strength of my life and soul Being in complete darkness, seeing nothing, not being able to breathe and trying to get your baby is something no one should have to go through. Ivar managed to put out the happily burning fire. Firefighters arrived, accompanied by police and an ambulance, and cleared the house of smoke. The boys stood escaped, because we got them out with incredible speed.”
Birna posted the attached photos of the action on the ground on Facebook. In the main composite news image, you can see the condition of the scooter after the explosion and fire.
Committed to helping the local community
Kirkjuhvoli’s house is uninhabitable after the fire, and family members stayed in three different locations the night after the incident, but fled the burning house in only their underwear and pajamas. She says the neighbors were very helpful in welcoming them, cleaning up after the fire and throwing away unnecessary things. “We are heartbroken, but at the same time we are grateful that it hasn’t gotten worse. We have to get over this and be supportive, but it hurts. We’ve come to the same place when we can’t live at the home,” Birna explains in an interview with DFS.
Big damage and the collection has started
Unfortunately, the family’s contracts with the insurance company had expired when the incident happened, so Birna and Ívar are left with the loss. When DV asked Birna if she could assess the damage, she quickly replied that it would be difficult. “I don’t realize it, you are still lost, but we are so grateful for the help that we are speechless, everyone is invited and ready to help us.”
After reviewing the situation, she then said this about the damage: “There are hundreds of thousands of them, and the whole house has to be emptied because there is a lot of smoke damage in every corner.” We are almost out of clothes and the same goes for bedding and stuff like that. It is difficult to assess the damage at the moment.”
She adds that it is both an emotional and material loss.
Parents of 7th grade children from Eyrarbakki and Stokkseyri Children’s School have started a collection to support the family. The text of the announcement of the collection, which is published in the group of inhabitants of Eyrarbakki on Facebook, says:
“We, the parents of 7th graders in BES, as one of the couple’s sons is in that class, will therefore be setting up a fundraiser to help them repair and repair what has been damaged. There a, for example, family clothes and more. Also, repairs are expensive. So we would like to reach out to you in our good community and ask you to contribute to this team with a donation, a lot of little things do a great thing. The Kirkjuhvoli couple were able to help and now we can help them.”
Everyone is welcome to support the family with a financial contribution and it is reminded that many little things add up to a big thing. The account information for the collection is as follows:
