‘Three more minutes and I’d be dead’: Door-cam shows corridor engulfed in smoke within nine minutes during Tai Po fire

A resident of Wang Fuk Court’s Wang Cheong House recently shared door-camera screenshots on social media, showing how thick smoke engulfed his floor in just nine minutes during the deadly five-alarm fire in Tai Po. He recounted his narrow escape and the failure of the fire alarm system.

According to the screenshots, at 2.52pm, just one minute after firefighters received the emergency call, neighbors were already inspecting the rear stairwell. At 2.56pm, several residents, including the author, gathered in the corridor to recheck the situation. By 3.00pm, the corridor had turned completely white as smoke surged upward.

The resident said he first detected a burning smell at about 2.52pm. Realizing the odor came from outside, he grabbed his phone and stepped into the corridor, where he found two neighbors also investigating.

They checked both stairwells, only to find both were already filling with white smoke. “With the smoke rising, going down might trap us, and going upstairs was even more dangerous,” he wrote.

Fearing the worst, he shouted “Fire! Get out!” while knocking on neighbors’ doors and pressing the fire alarm, but the system produced no sound.

He and three others decided to risk taking the elevator. Upon reaching the ground floor, they ran out of the building and saw thick black smoke billowing from the rooftop.

The resident said he could not stop thinking about those who did not make it out. “If I had hesitated even three more minutes, the corridor would have been full of smoke. I might not have survived,” he wrote.

He condemned the failure of the fire alarm system. “Who was so irresponsible that the fire alarm didn’t sound?” he asked, adding that he felt guilty for being unable to help more neighbors evacuate.