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For half an hour, as the fire grew and engulfed the adjacent building, Wan remained in his home watching television, unaware of the danger facing him. Even when they heard the commotion outside and sirens wailing in the distance, they dismissed it as a typical sweltering afternoon in Hong Kong.
When he heard people screaming for help, he got up to look out the window of his eighth-floor apartment. “As soon as I opened the window, I saw smoke,” he told CNN.
By then, it was 3:15 pm on Wednesday – 30 minutes after an eyewitness first saw the fire intensify in one of the eight residential towers that make up the Wang Fuc Court public housing complex.
Firefighters arrived at the scene, but the fire had already spread to other tower blocks, all of which were under renovation and covered with bamboo scaffolding, a traditional construction material. As the flames reached the 31-storey high buildings, burnt pillars were falling from outside.
Vann, whom CNN is identifying by his last name, grabbed his two dogs and his wallet, and ran down an emergency staircase that smelled of gas. Just minutes after their evacuation, the fire was declared Level 4 – the second highest in the five-level alarm ranking.
Over the next few hours, horrified onlookers watched as the complex – where more than 4,000 people lived, many of them elderly – quickly became engulfed in flames. People returning home from work and school stood with their briefcases and backpacks, looking out at the flickering orange as the daylight faded.
By nightfall the scale of the devastation became clear. The fire was declared a maximum alarm level 5 around 6 p.m. Community chat groups became active as families anxiously checked the whereabouts of their loved ones. News channels broadcast images that sent shock waves through Hong Kong, a prosperous city with a strong track record on building safety.
As stunned residents grappled with the rapid pace of the fire’s spread – which engulfed seven of the complex’s eight buildings in a matter of hours – they raised serious questions about whether the disaster could have been prevented, pointing to concerns over construction safety, silent fire alarms and an expensive renovation project.
Three arrests have been made so far, and criminal and anti-corruption investigations have been launched as the government faces increasing public pressure to answer questions.
After spending the night in an emergency shelter, Wan and his wife were among hundreds of residents desperately waiting for news.
“There is no home to go back to,” he told CNN from the sports center, which had been converted into a shelter, where volunteers and staff were roaming around distributing food and drinks.
“We have nothing, not even clothes.”
Questions and inquiries
At least 128 people are believed to have died in the fire, the deadliest fire in decades in the city of about 7.5 million. Many others are still missing and the death toll is expected to rise as the serious work of searching for burnt apartments continues.
As residents face an agonizing wait for news, some say there were early warning signs and appeals for action.
A Facebook group that describes itself as a community forum for Vang Phuc Court residents shows they raised concerns about the construction mesh material as early as last October – more than a year ago. Many of the posts included residents sharing what they said about complaints filed with the Department of Labor about potential fire hazards; One post claimed that the Labor Department issued a warning to contractors after a surprise inspection at the site.
In a statement sent to CNN, the Labor Department said it had conducted 16 safety inspections at Vang Phuc Court between July 2024 and November 2025, including a review of whether the product certification of protective sheeting (commonly known as ‘scaffold netting’) installed on Vang Phuc Court scaffolds met the department’s requirements.
“The most recent inspection was conducted on November 20, after which the department again issued a written reminder to contractors on the need to take appropriate fire safety measures,” it said.
Hong Kong’s code on bamboo scaffolding safety calls for all scaffolding nets to be fireproof. That Code is not a law – although non-compliance with it may result in criminal proceedings.
CNN has attempted to contact the manufacturing company in question via multiple email addresses and phone numbers, but has not received a response.
Officials and police also say they suspect that construction materials found in the apartments – including protective netting, canvas and plastic covers – failed to meet safety standards. They also found polystyrene boards, a highly flammable material, blocking the windows of several apartments – which Wan said he had previously seen inside the stairwell of his building.
Other residents expressed concerns to CNN about the speed of evacuation and the reliability of their fire alarms. On Wednesday night, a resident who declined to be named said that when a fire broke out in a nearby block, no authorities came to ask him to evacuate.
Another resident surnamed Au, aged 40, said her family smelled fire and heard bamboo scaffolding burning and falling outside their walls – but their building’s alarm did not go off.
Hong Kong’s statutory anti-corruption body, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, announced on Thursday that it has set up a dedicated task force to investigate possible corruption related to the Wang Fook Court renovation.
Separately, city leaders announced Thursday that all housing properties undergoing significant renovations will be inspected for safety.
The fire gutted a neighborhood that many loved because of its pedestrian streets, wide bike paths and the abundance of nearby hiking trails.
Vang Phuc Court is part of government public housing – a program aimed at renting or selling affordable housing at deep discounts to low-income families.
Hong Kong is regularly rated as one of the most expensive property markets in the world, where a small apartment far from the city center can still eat up half a monthly salary – making these public housing units extremely desirable. Demand is so high that apartment units often have waiting lists for years.
By 2024, approximately 45% of the city’s population will live in some form of public housing. That’s more than 3.3 million people, many of whom depend on the program to make a living.
Hundreds or thousands of people may now be left homeless after the fires, although the full extent of the damage is not yet clear.
Adding to the shock is the fact that many of the residents in the burnt buildings are elderly – reflecting Hong Kong’s rapidly aging society as its fertility rate declines. According to government and estate agency data, the largest age group in Wang Phuc Court is residents aged 65 and above.
Wan and his wife are in their 40s and live in an apartment originally purchased by his parents. But, he said, most of his neighbors are much older. The youngest new buyers at the complex are at least 60 years old, he said.
A resident named Yuen said he was most worried about his parents – who are in their 70s and he and his wife live in a separate apartment on the same floor. When the UN heard the news on Wednesday afternoon, he arrived home from work but was not allowed to enter the building, he said.
Since then he has not heard anything from his parents.
Another displaced person told CNN on Wednesday that he bought his apartment in March after living in the neighborhood for decades. He spent eight months renovating the apartment, an effort that cost him the equivalent of thousands of US dollars. He was preparing to move forward soon.
Now, he said, “it’s all burned up.”
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