HONG KONG — At least 13 people were killed Wednesday in a spectacular Hong Kong fire that destroyed the Wang Fuk Court housing estate, in the northern Tai Po district, as bamboo scaffolding and several of the 31-story towers there collapsed while authorities sounded a No. 5 alarm over a conflagration that spread vast plumes of black smoke across much of this teeming city, Nov. 26, 2025.
Fire raced up bamboo scaffolding and green construction netting draped across blocks being renovated, trapping people in their flats while firefighters worked for hours to douse the intense heat and thick smoke as burning debris rained from the sky.
Four injured in Hong Kong bamboo scaffolding blaze.
According to government statements cited by Reuters, the Hong Kong fire broke out at about 2:51 p.m. local time after emergency services received multiple reports of an explosion and flames in one of the estate’s eight residential blocks. The authorities initially classified the blaze as a No. 1 alarm before quickly escalating it to No. 4 and, finally, to the top-tier No. 5 at 6:22 p.m., on a five-step scale that indicates increasing complexity and danger.
Video shared by local media and shown in coverage from The Associated Press showed at least five towers burning simultaneously on Tuesday, with flames jutting from windows or licking up scaffolding outside as night fell. AP’s early report said four people had died, and five were injured, but by evening, a live blog in the South China Morning Post and elsewhere reported that at least 13 people, including one firefighter, were dead and more than a dozen others were critically injured, with an unknown number still unaccounted for.
The Wang Fuk Court complex, which has about 2,000 flats and nearly 5,000 residents, is part of a government-supported home-ownership scheme that residents have lived in since 1983. Police closed a crucial section of Tai Po Road, one of Hong Kong’s main thoroughfares, and rerouted bus service as dozens of fire trucks and ambulances packed the neighbourhood, and nearby community centres opened as temporary shelters for evacuees.
“I don’t even know how I feel right now,” 66-year-old resident Harry Cheung told reporters, adding that he had lived in the estate for over 40 years and was worried he would not be able to return home. “I’ve stopped thinking about my property,” said another resident, who identified himself only by his surname, Wu, and added that it was heartbreaking to watch the towers burn on local television.
Hong Kong: Deadly blaze leads scrutiny of building safety
The fire in Hong Kong on Wednesday quickly rekindled questions about how effectively the city has been policing the long-promised upgrades to the old residential blocks and construction sites that dot its landscape. The fire seemed to race along exterior bamboo scaffolding and plastic netting that encased multiple towers undergoing renovation, a hazard in a city where bamboo is still widespread despite an ongoing push to phase it out. Officials said earlier this year that at least half of public construction projects would have to use metal frames rather than bamboo, which they say is not as safe.
A number of recent tragedies have been caused by failures in fire safety. In April 2024, a fire erupted in the New Lucky House building in Jordan, which was six decades old, killing five people and injuring 43 others when the owners didn’t follow government orders for 16 years to install new fire doors and other safety measures, according to an investigation by South China Morning Post. That case spurred lawmakers to seek changes in the law that would give authorities the leverage to order fire-safety work themselves and bill uncooperative owners.
The 2024 incident also brought back memories of the 2011 Fa Yuen Street fire in Mong Kok, which was sparked by an electrical fault at a hawker stall and swept through two eight-story buildings, killing nine people and injuring 34 while leaving 118 homeless, the Young Post wrote in a retrospective. Those earlier incidents prompted the 2007 Fire Safety (Buildings) Ordinance, but thousands of pre-1987 structures remain only partially compliant.
The Wang Fuk Court towers were undergoing extensive renovations and covered in scaffolding at the time of the Hong Kong fire, according to The Independent, a combination that led firefighters to battle walls of flame and falling metal and bamboo as they searched for residents still trapped within. Its live coverage reported evacuations at nearby estates and accounts of elderly residents and babies among the missing.
As investigators start piecing together how the fire that tore through a Hong Kong building and claimed at least seven lives on Sunday spread so quickly, attention is expected to turn to whether there were working fire alarms, accessible escape routes and facade protections to code in a dense estate that had already been due for upgrades. For survivors, waiting in crowded temporary shelters for someone to provide those answers is vexing enough; the more immediate questions are who has been lost, and when their battered communities will be allowed to head home.
