February 18, 2022
A huge fire erupted in the giant Tehran Bazaar February 12, consuming 20 to 30 businesses, according to the city fire department.
Fire is one of the great fears in the sprawling bazaar because its narrow alleyways 10 kilometers (six miles) of them make it difficult to get fire equipment to the site of a blaze.
Fortunately, however, this fire erupted at 7:38 in the morning, before the Bazaar had opened and few people were in the area. The fire department reported no deaths and only two injuries despite the size of the fire, which drew firefighters from six stations and took almost fire hours to extinguish.
The fire department said some explosions were heard while firefighters were at work, but the source of those explosions wasn’t yet known.
The fire was located in the Hajeb-od-Dowleh sector of the Bazaar, which is in the far northwestern part of the Bazaar, and in the area where shoemakers are concentrated. Hajeb-od-Dowleh is one of the most historical portions of the Bazaar, so the losses were more than commercial—but the fire did not reach the timcheh of Hajeb-od-Dowleh, which is on the national registry of cultural heritage sites. A timcheh is a small arcaded courtyard dedicated to single type of business.