JEDDAH, 28 May 2005 — A number of warehouses and workshops in south Jeddah were gutted in a massive fire causing losses worth millions of riyals, informed sources told Arab News.
According to the Civil Defense Department, the fire broke out at 9 p.m. on Thursday at a furniture warehouse and spread to other warehouses and workshops at Souk Al-Janoub in Madain Al-Fahd district. Preliminary estimates put the losses at SR15 million.
“I was on the roof of our building at around 11:30 p.m. when I saw the flames. The huge columns of fire gave me the chills. I was afraid that it would spread to our neighborhood,” said Naif Al-Yami, a Saudi resident of Madain Al-Fahd.
The fire department said it had dispatched 14 tenders including four support units from Makkah. The firefighters took nearly 19 hours to put out the blaze completely.
“I was in my car driving on the seaport bridge at 4:45 Friday morning. I wanted to take the exit but police had closed the road because of the fire. The flames were sky high,” Yousuf Al-Zahrani told Arab News.
At 3:30 p.m. yesterday, the firefighters were still hosing the pile of debris with flames coming out at different points.
Lt. Col. Talal Al-Ghanmi of the fire department, who was present at the scene this afternoon, told Arab News that 85 percent of the fire had been put out. “We were not able to control the blaze until the early morning hours. It is normal for such fires to take this long, because of collapsed sheds trapping the fire inside generating extremely high temperature,” he explained. “We are still hosing the warehouses to make sure that we have put out the fire 100 percent,” he added.
Officials launched an investigation to determine what had exactly caused the fire.
