JEDDAH, 5 March 2004 - A father and his three children were killed when their house in Bahrah burned down due to what the family allege was negligence from the Civil Defense in Bahrah. Civil Defense officials confirmed to Arab News that the three - Fahd Al-Harbi, 37, Atheer, 8, Nurah, 6, and Majid, 3 - died in the fire. But Col. Muhammad Al-Ghamdi, the director of the Civil Defense in Jeddah, denied eyewitness reports that they died because firefighters took two hours to arrive at the scene, according to Al-Madinah Arabic newspaper. The mother is in intensive care at King Abdulaziz hospital. The children's uncle had earlier told the newspaper local firefighters refused to help saying they were not responsible.
"I woke up and smelled smoke coming from my brother's house," Mubarak Al-Harbi told the paper. "I called the fire station, which is five minutes away. But they refused to come saying that the neighborhood belonged to Jeddah and not Bahrah city. We then called the fire station in Kilo 14, and they did not arrive until the house had burned down and there were no more flames to put out."
He added that even when the firefighters arrived, they were not accompanied by an ambulance. "We tried to save the family ourselves but we could not. We pulled them out and took them to hospital, but I was injured myself."
His brother Obaied Al-Harbi, confirming the story, said he was at a loss to understand the firefighters' failure to respond. "What went on in their heads when we told them that a family is trapped in a burning house?" he asked.
