HONG KONG – With Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades finally extinguished on its third day on Nov 28, the initial feeling of fear and shock among the people is now shifting to anger as they struggle to make sense of the tragedy.
How did it happen, how was it even allowed to happen, and who – or what – should they blame for the blaze that has
claimed the lives of 128 people and counting?
The inferno that engulfed the Wang Fuk Court housing estate in Tai Po district has also left about 4,000 residents homeless, more than 70 injured and 200 unaccounted for.
Hong Kongers are directing their rage at several parties.
The authorities, for their part, have arrested 11 people so far, opening criminal investigations and a corruption probe into the incident.
Eight people detained on Nov 28
were two directors of construction consultancy Will Power Architects, two of its project managers overseeing Wang Fuk Court’s maintenance work, three subcontractors for the bamboo scaffolding, and a middleman. Three others – two directors and a senior staff member of building maintenance firm Prestige Construction & Engineering – were arrested on Nov 27.
Officials are now pointing to boards of highly flammable styrofoam, affixed to window frames outside the flats to protect their glass panels from renovation works on the buildings’ exterior, as the cause of the “unusually fast” spread of the blaze.
A day earlier, they had raised the possibility of green mesh and plastic sheets on scaffolding sheathing the buildings as having contributed to the fire’s rapid spread, but later said tests found the netted material “non-flammable”.
Locals, meanwhile, are slamming some media outlets for prematurely casting the blame on bamboo scaffolding –
a much-loved cultural icon in Hong Kong
that is being actively phased out by the government.
Immediately after news of the blaze broke on Nov 26, many foreign media outlets had jumped to spotlight controversies involving the city’s long-time use of bamboo scaffolding, citing at least two fires involving them in 2025.
Chief Secretary Eric Chan subsequently said the government aimed to fully replace bamboo scaffolding with metal structures as soon as possible, as “despite its long history in Hong Kong, it is ultimately not as fire-resistant as metal ones”.
But photos from the site of the blaze shared widely online showed many of the buildings’ bamboo structures standing intact, albeit slightly charred, after most of the fire had been put out. The green mesh on the scaffolding was left limp and melted, however.
The Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union’s chairman Chau Sze Kit said metal scaffolding came with its own risks in the event of fire, such as heating up faster and becoming more prone to collapse at certain temperatures.
“Whether bamboo or metal, either is safe to use as long as they are managed well and rules are followed,” Mr Chau told a local TV programme.
Bamboo scaffolding and construction mesh cling to one of the burnt-out towers in the aftermath of the Tai Po apartment fire in Hong Kong.
PHOTO: EPA
Lawyer Clara Lo expressed frustration over how bamboo scaffolding had been maligned.
“It’s infuriating to watch commentators, especially those outside Hong Kong, point fingers at bamboo as if it caused the fire or somehow proves we’re behind the times,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post that garnered more than 500 reactions in less than a day. “The rush to blame bamboo scaffolding isn’t just lazy; it’s dishonest.”
Other Hong Kongers are demanding scrutiny into whether the authorities themselves slipped up in ensuring that fire safety regulations are up to scratch and followed.
These include whether regulators made sure flame retardants were adequately applied on the scaffolding and mesh, and that their flammability levels were acceptable within international – not just mainland Chinese – standards.
Hong Kongers are speculating if there was any oversight on the authorities’ part, of safety violations by private contractors, that might have contributed to the blaze.
Such talk may have repercussions on how some candidates fare in the upcoming Legislative Council elections on Dec 7. Chief Executive John Lee has said he will decide in the next few days whether to postpone the polls in view of the disaster.
Theories that construction workers’ smoking habits around the renovation sites may have started the fire are also rife. Residents have complained about workers smoking even as they worked on the scaffolding.
Worsening the impact of the blaze was the fact that the entire estate’s fire alarms in all eight of its towers had malfunctioned, the authorities disclosed on Nov 28 after preliminary investigations. This meant that residents were slow – or may not even have had a chance – to evacuate.
Building maintenance firm Prestige Construction, whose practices are now under investigation, had a record of safety offences, according to local media.
It was in 2023 fined twice for breaching safety regulations on its projects and, just months later in July 2024, commenced renovation works at Wang Fuk Court. Since then, the firm has faced three prosecutions for safety violations at the estate, and was as recently as Nov 20 warned by the authorities to step up its fire safety measures there.
“The early reporting already points to serious safety violations and poor control of external works,” Hong Kong legal consultant Adam Clermont, who is familiar with labour, fire safety and regulatory issues among other matters, wrote in an article he shared on LinkedIn.
The lack of functioning fire alarms in old estates and the tolerance for highly combustible works on buildings where people were living, are “a symptom of a deeper mindset: that high-rise fire is rare, that old buildings can be left to muddle through, and that paper compliance is enough”, he said.
“Tai Po has shown, in the most brutal way, that this is fantasy.”
The Hong Kong Construction Association, whose aim is to improve the city’s construction industry standards, declined to comment on matters related to the Tai Po blaze amid the ongoing investigations.
Some of the chatter on the ground may border on the speculative. The factors that sparked the fire and caused its rapid spread and extensive destruction of lives and homes will undoubtedly take several more weeks, even months, to fully uncover.
But the public appears to have already reached its conclusion.
Veteran social commentator Fung Hei Kin summed up the popular opinion among Hong Kongers in a Facebook post on Nov 27 that quickly drew more than 11,000 reactions and over 1,600 shares.
“The unscrupulousness of contractors, negligence of supervising engineers, the complacency of government departments, and the careless discarding of cigarette butts by unknown individuals – these layers of societal degradation are the root causes of the tragic disaster at Wang Fuk Court,” he wrote.
Hong Kong’s construction industry has often made the news for its black sheep – be it contractors turning a blind eye to substandard work and materials for bribes, or site supervisors displaying a blatant disregard for regulations.
In August, the MTR Corporation filed a police report over allegedly counterfeit bricks supplied by one of its subcontractors. Mainland bricks were used to build walls in an MTR station, instead of the German ones specified in the procurement contract.
Government departments are also no stranger to accusations of complacency that has led to lapses.
The same month the MTR brick scandal broke, officials discovered that negligence in the government’s bidding process allowed a mainland firm to
supply bottled water of dubious origin
to the city’s public offices.
In the investigation of the Tai Po fire, if players in the construction industry are eventually found to have set the ground for the disaster – or departments in the government discovered to have contributed to it – it would not be the first case of a man-made tragedy in the industry.
But with rising public anger focused on the matter and Hong Kongers demanding accountability and agitating for change, hopefully Wang Fuk Court can be the last.
