Four in Sabah family killed in fire as firefighters delayed

 

A call sheet with an inaccurate address delayed the arrival of firefighters at the scene of a fire in Taman Hungab, Penampang, near Kota Kinabalu, which killed four in a family last Tuesday.

Sabah Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department (JBPM) director Md Ali Ismail said the Penampang fire and rescue station received the distress call at 2.52am.

However, the firefighter squad could only reach the scene at 3.04am after contacting the caller for the actual location.

“JBPM received the information at 2.52am and mobilised a team to the location of the fire.

“At the same time, the call staff at MERS999 was still continuing the call to get additional information based on the Fire Protocol,” he said.

Sabah Chief Minister Hajiji Noor, when commenting on the incident, wanted the standard operating procedures for the 999 Malaysian Emergency Response System (MERS) to be simplified.

He said this included connecting calls directly to the district or state involved, especially in Sabah.

Commenting on the call, Md Ali said the MERS999 Call Centre in Malacca received four calls with the first received at 2.49:01am and the second at 2.49:02.

He said there were three Call Centres nationwide, in Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, and Kuching.

Any of those centres would receive emergency 999 calls.

Md Ali said the MERS999 call centre staff obtained four points of information: the name of the caller, the caller’s telephone number, type of emergency, and the address of the incident.

He said the information had been channelled through computed-aided dispatch (CAD) to the JBPM Operations Centre of Sabah as well as the Penampang fire and rescue station.

“When the team arrived, they found the fire had spread from the ground floor to the upper floor of the house. An investigation found that an electrical overload had triggered the fire.

“The fire was said to have started at 2.32am, spreading faster to the upper floor,” he said.

Md Ali said the victims were not able to save themselves as the ground floor of the house was burning fiercely and all the windows and exit doors had metal grills and were locked.

The victims, identified as Matthew Wong, 50; his sons Brendan, 18, and Eri, 15, were found in a room on the upper floor while his wife Jecky Yun Kon Fung, 48, was found in a nearby bathroom.

- Bernama