Serious tragedy in Shkodra, firefighters: Families should remove 5-liter orange gas cylinders from their homes, they are very dangerous

2026-07-30 08:20:12Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Serious tragedy in Shkodra, firefighters: Families should remove 5-liter orange
Illustrative photo

A serious tragedy occurred yesterday in the village of Domen, Shkodra, where 24-year-old Bleona Çobaj/Çelaj and her two children, aged 18 months and 3 years, Amar and Anuar Çelaj, lost their lives from the suspected explosion of a homemade gas cylinder near an old house owned by the family, abandoned for 20 years.

Invited to the "Repolitix" show with Denis Minga on Report TV, the chief of firefighters of Administrative Unit number 6 in Tirana, Luan Shehu, said that the cylinder that took the lives of 3 family members, which holds approximately 5 liters of gas and its exterior is usually orange, has been categorized for years as very dangerous for domestic use.

Shehu repeated several times that Albanian families should definitively give up using these types of canisters.

"It has not happened to us with these that are 15 kilos and above that are widely used at home or in bars and restaurants. The problem has always been these that have come wrinkled. It has been a large amount that we have constantly insisted on, both with family members and in the trainings we do in various schools. We have made it possible for these to be removed, but we see that from day to day there are some leftovers that people keep around the house. This is very dangerous," said Shehu.

According to the firefighter, the explosion in Shkodra was so powerful that it killed a 24-year-old mother and her 2 minor children on the spot.

"We are talking about shock waves. A shock wave means the push of a great pressure and as you can see from the event that happened there, it does not see windows or doors. It (the shock wave) destroys the weakest points wherever it finds them. At the same time, this is accompanied by flames. Being accompanied by flames, the products that we have today mainly in home furnishings, we have hydrocarbons. So they have a very low flash point and this causes the flame to catch fire simultaneously throughout the house. I think that the explosion caused their immediate death," said Shehu.


Video