The fire brigade has been fighting the major fire since Friday evening.

The fire at the former home of the State Operetta in Dresden-Leuben has now been largely extinguished, a fire department spokesperson said in response to an inquiry. The rear section, where the auditorium was located, collapsed, the fire department announced this morning. Both the main building and the former auditorium are no longer accessible due to the danger of collapse. The building burned down completely.

Early in the morning, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) was called in to remove the roof. This would allow the fire department to reach and extinguish embers in the roof area. The warning to the public was also lifted this morning, the report added.

The fire department was also left with only about 35 personnel on site. The building had previously been fully ablaze. A cloud of smoke was visible from afar, and a warning was issued to the public.

Two directly adjacent residential buildings were temporarily evacuated as a precaution. The fire department did not initially comment on whether they would be able to be re-entered. A large contingent of 150 emergency personnel was deployed to the scene at one point. The former operetta house has been vacant for several years. The cause of the fire is still unclear. A police spokesperson was also initially unable to comment on the estimated extent of the damage early this morning.

Due to the massive smoke development and the dense residential development in the surrounding area, a warning was issued to the public. Residents within a 1,000-meter radius were asked to keep windows and doors closed and to turn off ventilation and air conditioning systems.

The Nina warning app stated: "Due to a roof fire on Pirnaer Landstraße, there is a smoke nuisance in the surrounding areas." Pirnaer Landstraße, a major road in the east of the state capital, has been completely closed. Local public transport is also affected.

No one has been found in the building so far, according to the fire department. One firefighter had to be treated by the emergency services as an outpatient due to circulatory problems. Fortunately, this person was also the only one injured, a fire department operations manager told dpa.

So far, the flames have only been fought from the outside. The attempt to save the roof structure of the former operetta main building was abandoned late in the evening. The fire department decided to temporarily issue the "water hold" order to allow the fire to penetrate the entire roof structure, according to the spokesperson.

"All onlookers are requested to leave the area immediately!" the fire department wrote. There were also problems with the use of the drone with a thermal imaging camera. "Two civilian drones were illegally in the airspace above the scene and were interfering with aerial reconnaissance efforts," it said.

In cooperation with the police, a drone pilot was identified. The fire department pointed out that such incidents are not trivial. "They not only endanger the success of the operation, but also the life and health of the emergency personnel. A collision could lead to an uncontrolled crash of the aircraft and serious damage."

The fire department in Dresden had already fought a fire with heavy smoke development in an unoccupied building on Friday afternoon. The fire broke out in an empty train station building in Dresden's Neustadt district. Because the building was heavily overgrown and in danger of collapsing, the fire could only be fought from the outside, a fire department spokesperson said.

With the support of a drone squadron, approximately 45 emergency personnel brought the situation under control, according to a statement. They were able to stop the flames from spreading. In this case, too, the public had been warned about the smoke development.

The Dresden State Operetta, along with its predecessors, looks back on over 240 years of tradition as a musical folk theater in Dresden. Since October 1947, it has been based in a former inn in Leuben, in the east of the city.

In 2002, due to the city's precarious financial situation, the closure of the cultural center was discussed – this met with massive protests. Since December 2016, the ensemble has been performing on the site of the former Kraftwerk Mitte power plant in the city center.