Residents at Wang Fuk Court had lived through typhoons, black rainstorms, and long power outages. But no one was prepared for a fire fueled by bamboo scaffolding — those familiar lattices of pale sticks that line Hong Kong’s construction sites like skeletons.
But that night, the bamboo became a wick.
Firefighters initially classified it as a Level 1 fire.
Fifteen minutes later, as the flames exploded upward, they raised it to Level 4.
At 6:22 PM, the highest alert was issued:
Level 5 — maximum emergency.
The kind of alarm that makes a city hold its breath.
Inside the Burning Buildings
People inside the towers had no time to think.
A grandmother preparing dinner smelled something burning — but when she opened her door, a wave of choking smoke poured into her home. A young couple on the 11th floor tried to escape, only to find the staircase too dark and too hot. A father held his two children close in their windowless bathroom and prayed the smoke wouldn’t find them.
