Oversight failures exposed as fire safety systems found disabled for months, fire probe hears

The fire safety system at Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court had been out of operation for more than six months before the fatal blaze, with investigators raising serious concerns over oversight failures and accountability lapses.

At the second day of hearings on Friday, senior counsel Victor Dawes, assisting the independent committee, revealed that two critical fire protection systems—the fire alarm system and the fire hydrant and hose reel system—were not functioning at the time of the fire.

The outage was linked to the property management company, ISS, which had switched off the main power supply to the fire pumps, effectively disabling the alarm system.

The hearing was told that the main power switch controlled both the fire alarm system and the hydrant system, meaning that shutting it down rendered both systems inoperative. Evidence suggested that this decision was made to facilitate maintenance works on water tanks, although it was noted that such works could have been carried out without cutting off the entire power supply.

Investigators also highlighted that the fire system had remained suspended far beyond the 14-day limit set by regulations.

A registered contractor - China Status Development and Engineering had submitted repeated applications—up to 16 extensions—to keep the system offline, resulting in a prolonged shutdown lasting over half a year.

The inquiry heard that the contractor responsible for these submissions had failed to verify whether such prolonged suspension was necessary, instead acting on instructions from the main works contractor - Victory Fire Engineering.

Evidence suggested the contractor had not conducted site inspections and had merely processed paperwork to extend the shutdown period - for a fee.

Concerns were also raised about the role of the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit, which had relied solely on document reviews and did not carry out on-site inspections. As a result, potential risks were not identified despite available evidence.

The Fire Services Department was also questioned over its role. Although officers conducted multiple visits to the estate between April and September 2025, they reportedly assumed that the fire alarm system was operational and did not inspect the fire pump room.

Officials were said to have relied on verbal confirmations from management and did not detect that the alarm system had been disabled without formal notification.

The hearing further revealed that frontline concerns may have been overlooked. Reports indicated that a security guard had repeatedly raised alarms about the system being switched off, but no action was taken. Another staff member later attempted to manually activate the fire alarm during the incident.

The committee is now examining whether systemic gaps in supervision, including reliance on self-reporting and a lack of on-site verification, contributed to the prolonged failure of essential fire safety systems.