A man aged 74 from Chisinau perished in an apartment fire in the morning of January 16. He was found carbonized in his kitchen.

The firefighters were alerted at about 4am by the elderly man’s neighbors. The fire was put out in over half an hour. Press officer of the Civic Protection and Emergencies Service Liliana Puscasu has told IPN that the cause of fire is not yet known. Matches and cigarettes were found in the apartment. As the neighbors said, the man used to smoke in his home.

The man lived alone and didn’t have children. Last spring, the apartment also caught fire, but the man suffered only carbon monoxide poisoning then.

The firefighters warn the population to respect the anti-fire rules in order to avoid tragedies. The 101 fires that happened in Moldova so fire this year resulted in 22 deaths.