Burned to the ground
- Source: Global Times
- [08:18 March 25 2011]
- Comments
A firefighter gestures to a colleague at the blaze that consumed three dormitories Thursday.
By Li Yanhui
Three construction workers' dormitories at the Hujialou Beili compound in Chaoyang district caught on fire and burned to the ground Thursday afternoon in a blaze that threatened the primary and middle school students who attend class next door.
Flames first appeared in one of the three-story temporary dormitories at about 4:50 pm, sending up a plume of dense smoke visible far from the scene against Thursday's blue skies.
"When I heard a noise outside my dorm, I went out and found the neighboring room was on fire," said a woman surnamed Yang who lived in the dorm with her husband, a worker at the construction site of the Jiaming Center, near the East Third Ring Road. "I was scared by the big flames, and only grabbed a suitcase before running out," she told the Global Times Thursday.
The courtyard is surrounded by the Hujialou Middle School to the south, one of Hujialou Central Primary School's buildings to the east and another nearly 200 meters to its west.
Teachers were guiding students to quickly evacuate from the eastern part of the primary school when a Global Times reporter arrived at the scene.
However, students in the western section were kept in their classrooms under instructions from the headmaster that were announced over the loudspeaker.
The gate to the west side of the school faces the courtyard and is the only way to leave the facility. Students were kept in their classrooms until 6 pm, when the fire was extinguished, before being allowed to leave to meet their parents.
"I saw the smoke and flames coming out of the courtyard, and smoke covered our building in the wind. I felt really hot," a student surnamed Zhang, 6, told the Global Times.
"As of now, I have not received any reports of injuries from the fire," an officer with the Beijing 999 First Aid Center on the scene told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.
About 15 fire engines in total were at the scene at around 5 pm, and the flames were extinguished an hour later. However, only one of the fire engines was able to reach the playground of the middle school to get close to the fire; many other engines could not fit down the narrow lanes where cars were parked.
"As parking fees are expensive at nearby office buildings, many drivers park their cars in the nearby hutong," a local resident said, his complaint echoed by others.
"The fire burned down about 500 square-meters of buildings," a senior firefighter was heard telling a colleague by phone.
