Two fire fighters were hospitalised and a third person injured after a fire gutted the roof of a building in the Østerbro district yesterday evening.

The two fire fighters were sent to the casualty ward after one was burned and another was hit by falling debris. The third person was injured when a falling roof tile struck his head

“We suddenly saw the chimney falling towards the fireman. Fortunately, it disintegrated before hitting him so it was just a pile of rocks that struck him. He was really lucky," Erik Bomholt, who lives in the area, told Ekstra Bladet newspaper.

A number of vehicles, including those from the fire department, also sustained considerable damage from falling debris.

“We had the fire under control and we believed that it wouldn’t spread, but we still had to stay and keep at it until about 2am,” Thomas Rydahl, a spokesperson for the fire department, told Ekstra Bladet.

One apartment and a number of attic rooms sustained fire damage, while the apartment directly below the blaze suffered water damage.

The fire reportedly started in building's attic and had burned through the roof by the time fire fighters arrived. It then took them about four hours to extinguish the blaze 

About 50 people were evacuated from area buildings, but the police indicated that the majority were able to return home last night.