Ski Resort Blaze Killed 20 Children, Fire Department Officials Among 11 Now Detained

Mar. 15, 2025

Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Resort.Photo:Musa Serdar Terzioglu/Anadolu via Getty

Musa Serdar Terzioglu/Anadolu via Getty

Twenty children were among the 76 fatal victims of a fire thatspread through a Turkish ski resort in the early morning hours of Jan. 21, according to local media.

The fire took place at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the resort of Kartalkaya in northwestern Turkish province of Bolu.

Local investigators have detained 11 people,including the hotel’s owner, the Deputy Mayor of Bolu and the Bolu Municipality Fire Department Director in connection with the fire,Turkish Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunçannounced on Wednesday.

There were more than 230 guests at the hotel at the time of the fire, according to Minister Ali Yerlikaya, theAssociated Presspreviously reported.

A lot of the guests were children with their families because schools were on semester breaks, according to local newspaperSözcü. Entire families were killed in the fire, local outletsSerbestiyet, theHürriyet Daily NewsandTurkish Minutereported.

Ala Dora Türkmen, 18, asked for help on social media in the last minutes of her life, per Serbestiyet. “We are in room 9013, facing the track, we cannot hear from my family, we are trapped in the fire, urgent help,” she reportedly wrote.

Ala Dora, along with her father journalist Nedim Türkmen Türkmen, mother Ayşe Neva Türkmen and sibling Yücel Ata Türkmen all died in the fire, the outlet reported.

“At least a quarter of our customers were children,” Necmi Kepçetutan, a 58-year-old ski instructor, toldSözcü. “I have students I couldn’t reach. I don’t know where they are. I’m just praying.”

Kepçetutan told Turkish Minute several children who were his students were on the sixth and seventh floor.

“With the others, I leaned a ladder against the front wall and helped 15 to 20 people get out,” he told the outlet.

He said he lost five of his students, including a 6-year-old.

Funeral prayers for fire victims.Mert Gokhan Koc/ dia images via Getty

Mert Gokhan Koc/ dia images via Getty

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A cause of the fire has not been released.

The investigation into the fire is “being carried out with great sensitivity, multi-faceted and meticulousness,” Tunç said on X on Wednesday.

No Americans have been reported to be injured or present at the resort as of publication time.

source: people.com