Fire engulfs Denmark’s historic stock exchange building, iconic spire collapses

A fire broke out on Tuesday at Denmark's nearly 400-year-old historic stock exchange building, engulfing its iconic dragon-tail spire, which collapsed onto the roof.

The cause of the fire at one of Copenhagen's oldest buildings was not immediately clear. There were no reports of any injuries, Reuters reported, citing police.

Videos and images from the scene on Tuesday morning showed a violent fire engulfing the stock exchange building, or Boersen, which had been undergoing renovation work.

Crowds of people gathered in the Danish capital as black smoke billowed from the building and emergency services worked to tackle the blaze. Some were seen carrying large paintings in an attempt to save the artifacts from the fire.

The incident comes five years after a mammoth fire ravaged the Notre-Dame Cathedral in the French capital of Paris, which sent shockwaves across the globe on April 15, 2019.

Denmark's Deputy Prime Minister Troels Lund Poulsen described the fire as the Scandinavian country's own "Notre Dame moment."

"Terrible pictures from the Stock Exchange. So sad," Poulsen said in a post on social media platform X, according to a Google translation. "An iconic building that means a lot to all of us, I think."

A popular tourist attraction noted for its distinctive 184-foot spire, the 17th-century building no longer houses the Danish stock exchange. It now serves as the headquarters of the Danish Chamber of Commerce and is situated next to Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish Parliament.

Denmark's Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt lamented what he described as "400 years of Danish cultural heritage in flames," according to translated remarks published via X on Tuesday.

He added that it was "touching" that employees at the