MADRID - Two people died and 12 were injured in a fire apparently sparked when a waiter flambeed a pizza at a Madrid restaurant and accidentally set decorations ablaze.

The blaze started late on Friday night at Burro Canaglia Bar&Resto, an Italian restaurant in the central Salamanca neighbourhood.

One of the dead was a restaurant employee and the other was a customer, Madrid mayor Luis Martinez-Almeida told reporters on Saturday outside the building. The fire also left one person in critical condition in hospital and five others seriously hurt.

The mayor said the fire appeared to have been sparked when a waiter flambeed a pizza and the flames caught plastic flowers decorating the ceiling and columns of the establishment, which contained about 30 diners and employees at the time.

Flambé is a cooking procedure in which alcohol is added to food on a plate or hot pan to create a burst of flames.

Witnesses told the El Pais newspaper that the waiter poured alcohol over the dish and set it alight.

The waiter “had the plate in flames in one hand and the blowtorch in the other. He passed by a column with plants round it and in a matter of seconds it burned everything”, a diner who gave her name only as Ruth told the Spanish daily.

“The fire was put out less than 10 minutes after the alarm was raised,” said Mr Martinez-Almeida. “If they’d taken another four or five minutes, there would have been more victims because of the flames and smoke.”

Madrid fire chief Carlos Martin said the blaze took place near a fire station and people were able to run to alert them about the accident.

Diners found it hard to flee as the blaze started near the main exit, emergency services said.

Police were investigating the cause of the fire. REUTERS