Fire in "Musikkhuset"

Eikanger-Bjørsvik Musikklag´s band room was saved just in time Sunday morning as Lars Mostraum, a member of a local band discovered a smoldering fire in the fuse box. Mostraum was about to clean the band room with some fellow members from Oster Brass, but was met by a house full of ash and dust. He warned the fire service who within a few minutes secured the house. 

The firemen, several of them also local bandsmen, quickly concluded that the smoldering fire started in the fuse box. The fuse box is designed to endure a fire in about an hour, and due to oxygen lack, it served its intention when the fire died out. Still, the ash produced by the fire covered all rooms in «Musikkhuset», with a barely visible layer on all surfaces. Experts from the fire service inspected the house and the inventory thoroughly, preparing for the massive cleaning needed. The large amount of percussion instruments will be cleaned up by special trained personnel. Most of the walls will also be needed to be torn down. 

«Musikkhuset» will be closed down for several months, due to the highly toxic ash and dust floating in the air. EBML will need to aquire alternative places for band practices in the last couple of months before summer break. It will be quite a challenge with two tours coming up in the next month. Also local band Oster Brass and the school band Knarvik Skulekorps will need to find places elsewhere, as they also share the band room with EBML. They are in the final preperations for the Norwegian Constitution Day and the later National School Band Championship. 

EBML is happy that the fire was put out in the last minutes, but we will sure head into some months of hard work. Being perhaps one of the best band rooms in Norway, it will certainly assemble the band movement in Nordhordland to get it up and go, better than ever!

For more about the fire, read local papers Strilen, NRK Hordaland and Avisa Nordhordland.

Photo: Morten Sæle / Avisa Nordhordland

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Photo: Morten Sæle / Avisa Nordhordland