Cause of fire at city bank still not known

It was very fortunate that, after the major fire at the former main branch of the Zuger Kantonalbank on Postplatz on Thursday evening, so few people needed medical treatment. According to the head of the rescue service, Andreas Müller, just two people had to be taken to hospital and five others had to be given treatment on the spot.
 
The cause of the fire, which started on the roof of the bank (second photograph), is still under investigation.
 
As police spokeswoman Judith Aklin explained, dozens of people phoned the police at around 7.25 pm that evening to say that the bank was on fire. Only at around midnight was it actually under control, as Daniel Jauch, the superintendant of the Zug Voluntary Fire Brigade (FFZ) confirmed at a press conference on Friday morning. In all, some 250 firemen from Zug and other municipalities were in attendance pumping as much as 8,000 litres of water a minute onto the conflagration. What made it all worse for them was the high temperature that evening as this led to them soon becoming exhausted.
 
As mentioned, the cause of the fire remains unknown, so arson, negligence or a technical problem cannot be ruled out at the moment. However the seat of the fire has been in identified, though as of early on Friday this had not been closely inspected.
 
The chairman of the board of management of the Zuger Kantonalbank, Pascal Niquille, was greatly relieved that no one was seriously injured in the fire, which also featured in the Swiss national press on Saturday. No cost has yet been able to be put on the damage, either. What is clear is that it will not now be possible to move back into the building in July 2015 as planned. The state of the building on Thursday (before the fire) was very much a shell, with workmen engaged in installing pipes and ceilings.
 
Also present at the press conference on Friday was Andreas Bossard, who was representing the city council. He said how proud he was of the marvellous job the firemen did and hoped the building was not too badly damaged.
 
Following the fire, Niquille gave an interview with a journalist of the Neue Zuger Zeitung, a summary of which can be found on today's Panorama page.