Fire Engulfs West Jakarta Residential Area, Five Houses Destroyed

A fire hit a number of houses in the residential area of Jalan Palmerah Utara III, RT 15/RW 08, Palmerah Village, Palmerah District, West Jakarta, Sunday night. According to a resident named Rafi, the fire was allegedly from one of the residents' houses which quickly grew until burning down about five semi-permanent houses. "At first I didn't know, because I was outside. Then the family was called that there was a fire. The house that burned was Mr. Beni's house, then it spread. Five more houses," said Rafi. He said the fire was first triggered by a stove that was left on. "He said again to cook, then forgot to leave," said Rafi. When seeing the fire, the surrounding residents flocked to pour water on the burning object to prevent it from spreading. Meanwhile, the Head of the West Jakarta City Fire and Rescue Service (Gulkarmat), Syaiful Kahfi, said that his party deployed a total of 13 fire trucks with a capacity of 65 personnel to put out the fire. "The final deployment total is 13 units with 65 personnel," said Syaiful. After struggling for about an hour, starting at 18.37 WIB, officers finally managed to control and extinguish the fire so that it did not spread to other buildings. There were no reports of casualties in the incident. However, five semi-permanent houses were burned down. The fire case was then handled by the police from the Palmerah Police to investigate the exact cause of the fire.