The historic building of the old Copenhagen Stock Exchange goes up in flames

The old 17th-century Copenhagen Stock Exchange building went up in flames this Tuesday after an as-yet-unknown fire caused the spire of its tower to collapse. Emergency services said on Tuesday that the fire had caused parts of the roof to collapse and was out of control.

“As the structures burn, parts of the building are collapsing,” Jacob Vedstedt Andersen, director of Copenhagen’s fire and rescue services, said in statements reported by Danish agency Ritzau.

The fire broke out under the roof, which has copper elements and is difficult to access. Anderson said the flames intensified and spread to the rest of the building’s floors.

The person in charge of emergency services admitted that the fire was still out of control and about half of the historic building was affected.

Emergency services and firefighters are trying to put out the fire, while police have cordoned off a large area next to the building located in the central area. According to the police, at present there is no information about anyone being injured.

Dozens of Royal Guard recruits have also arrived to help secure the area and rescue paintings from the pictorial collection that adorn the interior.

Many parts of Christiansborg Castle, the parliament building located near the burning building, have been evacuated as a precaution. It was currently the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce and was covered with scaffolding for months to restore its facade.

“This is a huge fire that we are facing and one that we will have to deal with for a long time. It is an old building with many wooden constructions and a copper roof that protects from heat. “This is a major operation that will last almost all day,” Anderson told public television.

The Defense Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, expressed regret over what happened in a message by X: “How sad. He said, “An iconic building that means so much to all of us… our own Notre-Dame moment.”

The building, one of the oldest buildings preserved in Copenhagen, was built between 1619 and 1623 by order of King Christian IV and served as the Danish capital’s stock exchange until 1974. Culture Minister, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, has also expressed regret. What happened: “400 years of Danish cultural heritage in flames,” he said in X.