Three people died in a fire that broke out early Sunday in a residential building in the centre of the French Riviera city of Grasse, firefighters said. Three others were seriously injured and four had lighter injuries, they said, adding that the fire had been extinguished. The origin of the fire in the historic centre of Grasse, considered the world's perfume capital, was not immediately clear.
It affected the top three floors of the five-storey building, whose facade was partially blackened by the flames. "The fire mainly affected the stairwell," Jean-Christophe Demarte, head of the rescue operation, said, adding the flats mostly sustained smoke damage.
Firefighters were alerted by local residents at around 3:00 am. They found the body of a person who had jumped out in front of the edifice and two other corpses inside.
The building is in a square in the old town which is lively in summer and popular with tourists for its restaurants, fountain and the small pedestrian streets running off it. The mayor Jérôme Viaud said the building did not have a structural problem but that renovation works on the facade and communal areas were planned in October. "Today it's too early to say what was the cause of the fire, if it's criminal or accidental," he said. An investigation is under way to determine the cause, the city's prosecutor said.