Overview
- Fire broke out around 7:25 a.m. on a terrace at Santa Lucía Hospital in Cartagena, spread along the façade, and was brought under control in roughly 20–30 minutes.
- Authorities reported no fatalities as emergency plans triggered evacuations and traffic restrictions around the complex.
- More than 100 patients were relocated as a precaution, with some transferred to Hospital del Rosell, and most services later continued with limited disruption.
- National Police forensic teams entered the site to determine the origin, with a poorly extinguished cigarette as the leading working hypothesis pending confirmation.
- The hospital’s exterior uses aluminum panels with a polyethylene core linked to fast-spreading fires such as Valencia’s Campanar; lawmakers had previously urged a review after a 2015 façade fire at the same site and there is still no public Spanish inventory of combustible cladding.