(article from Prague Daily Monitor online)

Prague, Nov 6 (CTK) - The firefighters managed to limit the fire that had broken out at the marketplace in Prague-Libus shortly after midnight only late in the afternoon on Thursday, with the assistance of a special police helicopter, Prague Fire Corps' spokesman Vit Pernica told CTK.

Libus is the city's biggest marketplace complex, including a one-storey building where mainly Vietnamese vendors store textile and shoe goods.

About 350 firemen from 55 units continue to tackle the diminishing fire. The extinguishing will go on until next morning at least.

"It seems that we've managed it. I wouldn't like to succumb to false optimism, however," Pernica said.

Already once this morning the firefighters believed for a moment that they had the fire under control, but later it spread to another part of the burning building.

Pernica said the material damage cannot be estimated for the time being.

He said the firemen's intervention was the largest in Prague in the past 25 years, except for the recent tackling of fire of the Industrial Palace in Prague's exhibition area.

In the intervention Thursday, Prague firemen were helped by their colleagues from other regions. Hundreds of firemen gradually turned up to tackle the fire.

No serious injuries are reported.

The cause of the fire has not been determined yet.

This was for the second time this year that the Libus marketplace caught fire. The firefighters put out another extensive fire in the same place on September 7.

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