Inferno in Keelung residential building leaves 2 dead, 4 injured｜Taiwan News

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A man and a woman were killed and a further four people were injured after a fire broke out in a residential building in Keelung. Investigators discovered that there was clutter piled to the ceiling in the apartment where the fire broke out, which impeded rescue efforts. The man killed was Chan Neng-chieh, a squad leader with the Keelung City Fire Department’s Renai branch. Before he was killed, he rushed into the burning building three times to rescue people, even giving his own oxygen mask to a resident. Let’s find out more about this heroic fire fighter and how the fire started.

This residential building is filled with thick smoke, making visibility almost zero.

Thick white smoke fills the air. The firefighters are racing against time, rushing into the flames to rescue people who were trapped and bring them out, one by one.

After the residents were rescued, oxygen masks were placed on their faces, and they lay weakly on stretchers. However, some were still trapped inside.

The living room? OK.
You need to open the front door
so we can get in and reach you.

The woman’s eyes were red with tears and she didn’t know what to do—because the fire had started in her home, and her 33-year-old daughter was still inside.

I can’t get out; I have to crawl.
The entire stairwell is filled with smoke.
I can’t see anyone.

Building resident
There was a strong odor of plastic. It was big—building after building. Some places had their doors locked; even when you knocked, no one answered. Everyone was asleep.

The inferno occurred late in the night on Jan. 21 in a residential building on Leli 3rd Street in Anle District, Keelung. The fire started on the second floor, where a large amount of clutter had been hoarded, causing the fire to spread rapidly. Chan Neng-chieh, a squad leader with the Keelung City Fire Department’s Ren-ai Branch, and the homeowner’s daughter both lost their lives, bringing the total toll to two dead, four injured.

Upon closer inspection, clutter had been piled almost to the ceiling, obstructing movements and making search and rescue extremely difficult. It’s suspected that the fire broke out in the living room. The homeowner said that before the fire broke out, she saw the intercom at the door appearing to be short-circuiting and emitting sparks. After the fire was extinguished, fire investigators found that even more than 10 hours later, residual voltage of 90 volts was still detected in the walls. They suspect that the fire caused internal wiring to melt and short-circuit, or that the issue stemmed from the building’s shared electrical lines. As a result, the walls became electrically charged, turning the walls into an invisible killer that rescue personnel could not see. One firefighter was injured after being electrocuted.

Pan Te-fa
Borough chief, Liuhe, Keelung
This is the first large-scale fire we’ve encountered in our community in over 30 years. The apartment where the fire started had an extreme amount of piles of clutter. The homeowner, a mother, is quite old. And perhaps because everyone’s health wasn’t completely OK, they piled up clothes and other miscellaneous items.

The exact cause of the fire is still under investigation, but it is undeniable that the mountain of clutter piled inside the apartment, coupled with the weird electrical currents running through the walls, was the chief culprit behind this blaze and the heavy casualties it caused.

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