Baku, April 16, AZERTAC

A fire ripped through Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange, one of the Danish capital's best-known buildings, on Tuesday, engulfing its spire which collapsed in a scene reminiscent of the 2019 blaze at Paris' Notre-Dame, according to Reuters.

Emergency services, employees from the Danish Chamber of Commerce, including its CEO Brian Mikkelsen, and even passers-by were seen carrying large paintings away from the building in a race to save historic artefacts from the flames.

"We are saving everything we possibly can," Copenhagen fire department chief Jakob Vedsted Andersen told reporters.

Denmark's National Museum sent 25 employees to the scene to help evacuate cultural artefacts and paintings, it said on X.

The historic building, whose spire was shaped as the tails of four dragons intertwined, had been under renovation and clad in scaffolding when the fire broke out.

Parts of the roof had collapsed and the fire spread to several floors of the building, Vedsted told reporters.

"It's always sad to put out fires in old buildings," he said.

Some 120 people were working to contain the fire but only around 40% of it was under control, Vedsted said, adding that the firefighting operation would go on for at least 24 hours.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, police said.

"Horrible pictures from the Bourse. So sad. An iconic building that means a lot to all of us ... Our own Notre-Dame moment," Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen wrote on X.

Thick grey smoke rose above the city and sirens could be heard as emergency services were called to the site. Around 90 conscripts from the Royal Life Guards, an army unit, were helping cordon off and secure valuables, the military said.

"I am very, very sad... At first I couldn't believe it was true," schoolteacher Elisabeth Handberg, 80, said, adding that she and her pupils had watched the smoke from their classroom window.

"My fifth graders said 'it's been there since the time of King Christian IV and then it burns'. They were also very touched by it," she added. "I'm hoping it will be rebuilt, it can't be any other way."

The Dutch Renaissance-style building no longer houses the Danish stock exchange, but serves as headquarters for the Danish Chamber of Commerce.