The Unlicensed Dormitory Behind Flamengo's Fire

At 7:17 a.m. on 8 February 2019, Globo's Bom Dia Rio carried the first reports of a fire at Flamengo's Ninho do Urubu training center. Local reporting said the fire occurred in a dormitory where youth players slept. A technical account from APERJ said 26 young athletes were in the alojamento when the flames began. Ten adolescent athletes died.

The accommodation was housed in container-style modules used for Flamengo's youth players. The training center had recently expanded, according to Memória Globo's retrospective, and a new building for the club's official players had opened at the end of 2018. The youth players' sleeping quarters were still in the modules when the fire struck.

The facility's licensing record supplied a separate measure of the institution's condition. Rio de Janeiro's city government said the training center lacked an operating license at the time of the fire. Reporting on the municipal permit file said it showed a parking area where the dormitory was later built. The record described what the city had authorized; it did not itself determine criminal responsibility.

The case reached the 36th Criminal Court of Rio de Janeiro. In 2025, the court absolved the remaining defendants. The ruling brought the criminal proceeding to an end without a conviction arising from the deaths or the facility's licensing status.

G1 reported that the judge's stated reason was the absence of proof of penal fault and a safe causal link between the defendants' conduct and the fire. The licensing record and the court ruling therefore answered different questions: one documented the facility's status, while the other found the criminal proof insufficient. The remaining defendants were absolved.