In the wake of last week's fatal blaze, the authorities are reviewing whether tough new measures need to be introduced to check the spread of mini-storages in aging buildings, or amend legislation to improve fire safety standards. Sylvia Chang reports.

Hundreds of firefighters, backed by scores of ambulances and fire trucks, rose to the occasion - all in full combat gear at the scene - as thick, acrid smoke billowed from a Kowloon Bay factory building for nearly five days, claiming the lives of two gallant firemen and injuring 10 of their colleagues.

The deadly, pungent fumes, smelt like scorched plastic, were fanned by strong winds, forcing people passing by the apocalyptic setting with hunched shoulders to cover up their noses with their hands, as they made their way through the fire lines stretched over the sodden ground.

The cause of the inferno that started in a mini-storage facility last Tuesday morning remains a mystery. As the blaze raged out of control a few hours after it started, the fourth alarm was raised, forcing three schools to be shut down, and residents of two nearby care homes for the elderly to be relocated. A supermarket in the area ran out of masks.

It took firemen 108 hours to finally bring the blaze to a full stop. By 11 pm last Saturday, about 260 firefighters and ambulancemen had been called into service, with 46 fire and ambulance vehicles. A total of 12 breathing apparatus teams were deployed.

"The duration of the fire and the cause of the deaths of the two firefighters are very rare (in Hong Kong). The major obstacle (to control the fire) was that too much was unknown about the surroundings," former deputy director of fire services Lam Chun-man told a TV program on Saturday.

It all began as the fire broke out on the third floor of Amoycan Industrial Centre on Ngau Tau Kok Road. The floor, covering about 24,000 square feet, housed about 200 mini-storage units made of iron and metal sheeting, measuring 15 to 100 square feet. The floor was leased to SC Storage. Anything might have been stored in those individual units. Each was locked. All were separated by dozens of narrow channels, so firefighters entering the area found themselves entering a maze.

There are no regulations governing what can be stored there. Neither were there any fire prevention facilities, such as automatic sprinkler systems, that can be used in an emergency in the aging building, which was completed in 1961. There was no way for firefighters to map out an effective method to combat the blaze. All these factors have cast a negative spotlight on fire safety in such mini-storage facilities.

Array of possibilities

Finding the source of the fire is a question that remains to be answered. The fire was intensive and threatening, so there could be an array of possibilities. The smoke was heavy. Firefighters had to break into the mini-storage units one by one, looking for the source, said Poon Wai-lun, deputy chief fire officer (Kowloon) of the Fire Services Department.

Mini-storages became popular in Hong Kong in the 1990s as soaring residential property prices meant that families were restricted to smaller living spaces. People began putting away their off-season clothing and seasonal appliances in these facilities.

Some companies also rent out similar facilities for the storage of documents and company belongings. A unit of around 15 square feet normally goes for a monthly rental of below HK$1,000.

Currently, there are no official statistics on mini-storages and no specific regulations enacted to check their spread, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok said in a written reply to a legislator's question on the storage of dangerous goods in November last year.

In a report cited by Hong Kong Business Magazine, CBRE - a US-based, real estate consultancy - estimated that, by 2014, the market had seen more than 70 mini-storage operators in Hong Kong. With a combined area of 3.5 million square feet, their facilities are scattered around 300 locations across the city, with strong growth in consumer demand.

Tenants of mini-storages generally are required to sign a contract with the operators, agreeing that no explosives, chemicals, or flammable substances are to be stored. Evidence, however, suggests that operators rarely check on the types of goods held in storage.

Firefighters, generally, can assess whether dangerous goods are involved at a fire scene by checking product labels, Lai said. In last week's Ngau Tau Kok fire, flames in various colors could be seen, with temperatures reportedly reaching 1,000 degrees C.

Experts say lax fire safety standards in old industrial buildings, where most mini-storages are located, had possibly contributed to the tragedy that left two children fatherless - a 7-year-old-child and a 4-month-old baby.

The government has encouraged the redevelopment of aging factory buildings that were abandoned as the city lost its industrial base and gradually converted into offices, retail premises and hotels.

Buildings completed before 1987 and used for residential, business, trade and office purposes are required to upgrade their fire safety installations, including automatic sprinkling systems and emergency lighting.

However, industrial buildings built before 1973 are exempt from the requirement to install automatic sprinkler systems. At present, there are some 480 such buildings in Hong Kong, some turned into mini-storages, as was the case in last week's inferno. In the past decade, five firefighters have perished in four fires -three in industrial buildings.

Lessons to be learned

In 2010, a blaze at the Lai Cheong Factory Building in Cheung Sha Wan had drawn attention to fire safety concerns in industrial buildings.

A retired senior fireman, surnamed Li, told China Daily that after each fire, frontline teams would meet to review the process of fire control. "Each firefighter shares his experience and feelings about each incident, and then we discuss what lessons can be learned from them."

With more than three decades' experience in firefighting, Li said the lesson learned from a previous fire, however, may not be valuable or applicable to the next due to the completely different surroundings each time, especially in industrial buildings that are used for different purposes and with outdated fire facilities.

The government says the newly launched inter-departmental task force set up to determine why and how the two firefighters died in the Kowloon Bay inferno will try to determine the ignition point and trace how the fire had started and spread so ferociously.

The authorities will also inspect mini-storages throughout the city to find out if there's any infringement of fire safety laws and, if necessary, the legislation will be amended.

Li declined to comment on the firefighting strategy adopted to deal with last week's blaze, explaining that firemen are committed to reviewing their work on site instead of questioning their superiors' judgments.

"Our frontline firefighters act on our commanders' orders," he said as his voice faded with grief over the loss of his two colleagues.

Contact the writer at

sylvia@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 06/27/2016 page8)