A major fire at the Arghavan shopping centre west of Tehran has killed at least eight people and injured 36 others, in one of Iran’s deadliest commercial building blazes in recent years. Iranian state media said the fire broke out on Tuesday in Andisheh, a city near the capital, and spread quickly through the multi-storey complex, sending thick black smoke over the surrounding area.
The building housed more than 250 shops and around 50 offices, according to state reporting. Emergency crews worked through the night to contain the blaze inside the seven-storey structure, while officials warned the toll could rise as rescue and recovery efforts continued. State television footage showed firefighters battling intense flames as smoke poured from the facade. Iranian authorities have opened an investigation into the cause of the fire. Early findings reported by the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency indicated that flammable cladding materials on the exterior may have helped the fire spread rapidly. That has prompted scrutiny of possible safety failures in the construction of the complex.
Reports carried by regional media said the prosecutor’s office in Shahriar had moved quickly to investigate and issued an arrest warrant for the building’s constructor as part of inquiries into possible negligence. While industrial and commercial fires are not uncommon in Iran, the scale of casualties in this case has triggered a broader official response. The disaster has drawn comparisons with other deadly building fires in Iran, including the 2017 Plasco Building collapse in Tehran, which exposed longstanding concerns about fire safety enforcement and building standards. Authorities have now pledged wider inspections of similar commercial structures to prevent another tragedy.
