Wang Fuk Court's scaffolding leads to secondary combustion effect

A fire engineering expert says the scaffolding mesh used in Wang Fuk Court's maintenance led to a secondary combustion effect. This comes after the Independent Committee investigating the Tai Po fire continues its public hearing.

The hearing resumes at Central City Gallery. Yuen Kwok-kit, a government-appointed fire engineering expert and the chair professor of architectural engineering at the City University of Hong Kong, is the first witness to testify. Yuen says his team conducted a large-scale fire experiment at Sichuan University of Science and Engineering involving the construction of a three-storey mock-up light well of Wang Fuk Court, to rule if scaffolding mesh can achieve a secondary combustion effect. He says the peak heat rate reached 29 megawatts after just three minutes of combustion, and he deduced that a 31-storey building could hit 800 megawatts.

Yuen also notes the scaffolding mesh collected from Wang Chi House, the only unaffected block in the blaze, was not fire-retardant, intensifying the spread of fire across the buildings.

To Chi-wing, a divisional commander of the Fire Services Department, who assists Yuen with his work, told the committee the fire spread to 470 units after the first two hours.

Asked if he agrees with the views of the committee's experts that the secondary combustion effect would be reduced if Wang Fuk Court had erected scaffolding in phases, To says the situation would have been much better.

Yiu Men-yeung, the head of the Inter-departmental investigation task force and FSD's assistant director of New Territories South, says there are five factors leading to the severe number of fatalities in this fire, including the swift fire acceleration, blocked exits and shut-down fire alarm systems. The hearing is adjourned until Thursday 10am.