Cause of the fire at the motel
By the afternoon of December 20, Tan Binh District Police had completed the scene investigation into the cause of the fire at the motel, which left two people dead.
Authorities initially determined that the cause of the fire at the house with 1 ground floor, 1 mezzanine, 3 floors, and 1 rooftop on Xuan Hong Street, Ward 12, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City, which killed 2 people and 14 people suffered from smoke inhalation, was from an electric car parked on the ground floor catching fire.
Accordingly, the fire broke out from this electric car and then quickly spread to other vehicles parked on the ground floor. At the time of the fire, there were nearly 30 motorbikes and electric cars of all kinds on the ground floor, most of which belonged to the tenants in the house.
Through investigation, 8 motorbikes and electric vehicles were burned in an area of about 15 square meters. The upper floors of the building were mostly covered in smoke. At the scene, many tenants said that the house had no emergency exit, and the exit was blocked by vehicles on the ground floor.
The two victims who died in the incident were identified as T.T.T.N (born in 2001) and N.T.T (born in 2003, both from Vinh Long) who were found in the bathroom of room 301.
According to the assessment, when discovering toxic smoke, the two victims ran into the bathroom to hide and died of smoke inhalation.
Heroes in the fire
When discovering a fire in the house next door, Mr. Khuong The My (58 years old, living in Tan Binh district) quickly ran to the balcony of the 3rd floor of his house, shouting loudly for the victims to climb over.
"Most of them were girls so they were scared. I encouraged them to climb over and I held their hands to pull them up," Mr. My said, adding that he had saved nearly 10 victims who climbed over his house to escape the fire.
Senior Lieutenant Nguyen Hoang Thanh, an officer of the Fire Prevention and Rescue Police Team, Nha Be District Police, also contributed to the rescue.
At that time, Lieutenant Thanh was on his way from home (Cu Chi district) to his work unit. Passing by a fire, Lieutenant Thanh stopped his car and rushed into the fire to help rescue people.
Without directly approaching the house, Lieutenant Thanh ran to the house next door to ask to go inside and then climbed up to the balcony.
Seeing many people panicking, Lieutenant Thanh calmed them down and guided them to escape in the opposite direction of the smoke. Many people followed Lieutenant Thanh's instructions and climbed out onto the balcony and escaped to the ground safely.
After the professional fire brigade arrived at the scene, Lieutenant Thanh and the locals ran around to the back of the burnt house and discovered two people who had just escaped the fire trapped between two houses.
Lieutenant Thanh called on people to bring a ladder to help bring the two people down to the ground. One of the two people had a lot of bleeding in his leg and was taken to the hospital.
“Although I knew it was dangerous because there was no protective gear or fire fighting equipment, at that time, I didn't think about the danger at all, I just thought about how to save as many people as possible,” Senior Lieutenant Thanh shared.
As previously reported by Lao Dong Newspaper, at around 6:28 a.m. on December 20, the Fire Prevention and Rescue Police Department (PCCC-CNCH) PC07, Ho Chi Minh City Police received a fire report at a house on Xuan Hong Street, Ward 12, Tan Binh District.
Upon receiving the news, Department PC07 mobilized nearly 50 officers and soldiers along with 7 specialized fire trucks to the scene to put out the fire and rescue people. At about 6:52 a.m. the same day, the fire was completely controlled by the authorities.
Initially, the authorities determined the fire area to be about 15m²/280m². The fire police protected about 265m² of the remaining area of the house and prevented the fire from spreading to the surrounding area and neighboring houses.
According to the authorities, this house is a residential house divided into rooms for rent, a grade II townhouse, with a reinforced concrete structure. The house consists of 18 rooms, each room is about 10 square meters.
The rooftop alone has 2 rooms divided by plasterboard walls and corrugated iron roofs and the front area of the ground floor has a plasterboard wall partition for food and beverage business, the total floor area of the house is about 280m².
