For half an hour as the fire grew and swallowed an adjacent building, Wan watched television in his home, unaware of the danger blazing his way. Even when he heard a commotion outside and sirens wailing in the distance, he brushed it aside as a typically loud afternoon in Hong Kong.
It was only when he heard people screaming for help that he got up to look out the window of his eighth-floor apartment. “The instant I opened the window, I saw the smoke,” he told CNN.
By then, it was 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday – 30 minutes after an eyewitness first noticed a blaze intensifying in one of eight residential towers making up the Wang Fuk Court public housing complex.
Firefighters had arrived on the scene, but the fire had already spread to other tower blocks, which were all under renovation and covered in bamboo scaffolding, a traditional construction material. Burnt poles were collapsing off the exteriors as flames raced up the 31-storey high-rises.
Wan, who CNN is identifying by his surname, grabbed his two dogs and his wallet, and fled down an emergency stairwell that smelled of gas. Just minutes after his evacuation, the fire was declared a Level 4 – the second-highest on a five-tier alarm ranking.
Throughout the next few hours, horrified onlookers watched as the complex – home to more than 4,000 people, many of them elderly – rapidly became engulfed in flames. People returning home from work and school stood with their briefcases and backpacks, staring at the flickering orange as daylight faded.
By nightfall, the scale of the devastation was becoming clear. Around 6 p.m. the fire was declared a maximum level 5 alarm. Community chat groups lit up as families desperately checked the whereabouts of loved ones. News channels broadcast images that sent shock waves through Hong Kong, a wealthy city with a strong track record on building safety.
As stunned residents grappled with the sheer speed of the fire’s spread – engulfing seven of the complex’s eight buildings within a matter of hours – they raised critical questions about whether this disaster could have been prevented, pointing to concerns over construction safety, silent fire alarms, and a pricey renovation project.
Three arrests have been made so far, with criminal and anticorruption probes launched as the government faces mounting public pressure to answer questions.
After spending the night at an emergency shelter, Wan and his wife were among hundreds of residents waiting desperately for news.
“There’s no home to go back to,” he told CNN from the sports center that had been converted into a shelter, as volunteers and staff walked around distributing food and drinks.
“We have nothing, not even clothes.”
Questions and probes
At least 94 people are known to have died in the blaze, the deadliest in decades in the city of some 7.5 million. Hundreds of others remain unaccounted for.
As residents endure an agonizing wait for news, some say there were early warning signs and pleas for action.
A Facebook group that describes itself as a community forum for Wang Fuk Court residents shows they had raised concerns about the construction netting material as early as last October – more than a year ago. Several posts include residents sharing what they said were complaints filed with the Labour Department about possible fire hazards; one post claimed the Labor Department issued a warning to contractors after surprise on-site inspections.
In a statement sent to CNN the Labour Department said it had conducted 16 safety inspections at Wang Fuk Court between July 2024 and November 2025 “including reviewing whether the protective sheeting (commonly known as ‘scaffold netting’) installed on the Wang Fuk Court scaffolds had product certification meeting the Department’s requirements.”
“The most recent inspection was conducted on November 20, after which the Department again issued a written reminder to the contractors on the necessity of taking appropriate fire prevention measures,” it said.
Hong Kong’s code on bamboo scaffolding safety calls for all scaffold netting to be fire-retardant. That code is not a law – although non-compliance can carry consequences in any criminal proceedings.
CNN has tried contacting the construction company involved through several associated email addresses and phone numbers, but has not heard back.
Officials and police also say they suspect construction materials found at the apartments — including protective nets, canvas, and plastic covers — failed to meet safety standards. They also found polystyrene boards, a highly flammable material, blocking windows of multiple apartments – which Wan said he had noticed inside his building staircases before.
Other residents voiced concerns to CNN about the speed of evacuations and the reliability of their fire alarms. On Wednesday night, one resident who declined to be named said no authorities came knocking to tell her to evacuate when the fire began at a nearby block.
Another resident surnamed Au, aged 40, said his family had smelled fire and heard the sound of bamboo scaffolding burning and falling outside their walls – but their building alarm didn’t ring.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption, Hong Kong’s statutory anti-graft body, announced on Thursday that it had set up a dedicated task force to investigate potential corruption linked to the renovations at Wang Fuk Court.
Separately, the city’s leader announced on Thursday that all housing estates undergoing significant renovations will be inspected for safety.
Vulnerable residents
The fire struck a neighborhood loved by many for its abundance of pedestrian streets, wide bike paths and nearby hiking trails.
Wang Fuk Court is part of government public housing – a program that aims to rent or sell affordable housing to low-income families at a steep discount.
Hong Kong is routinely ranked one of the world’s most expensive property markets, where a tiny apartment far from the city center can still eat up half of a monthly salary – making these public housing units deeply desirable. Demand is so high that apartment units often have waitlists that stretch for years.
As of 2024, nearly 45% of the city’s population lives in some form of public housing. That’s more than 3.3 million people, many of whom rely on this program to make ends meet.
Hundreds or thousands may now be left homeless after the fire, though the full extent of the damage is not yet clear.
Compounding the blow is the fact that many residents in the burned buildings are elderly – reflecting Hong Kong’s rapidly aging society as its fertility rate declines. The biggest age group in Wang Fuk Court are residents aged 65 and above, according to government and property agency data.
Wan and his wife are in their 40s, occupying an apartment originally bought by his parents. But, he said, most of his neighbors are far older. Among new buyers in the complex, the youngest are at least in their 60s, he said.
One resident surnamed Yuen said he was most concerned about his parents – who are in their 70s and live in a separate apartment on the same floor as him and his wife. On Wednesday afternoon, Yuen rushed home from work when he heard the news, but wasn’t allowed to enter the building, he said.
He hasn’t heard from his parents since.
Another evacuee told CNN on Wednesday he had just bought his apartment in March, after living in the neighborhood for decades. He spent eight months renovating the apartment, an endeavor that cost him the equivalent of thousands of US dollars. He was preparing to move in imminently.
Now, he said, “it’s all burnt.”
CNN’s Samra Zulfaqar, Teele Rebane, Jadyn Sham and Helen Regan contributed reporting.
Bamboo scaffolding, a centuries-old technique, comes under scrutiny after Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades
The Hong Kong residential towers engulfed by smoke and flames on Wednesday were surrounded by an ancient construction material familiar to anyone who’s spent time in the one of the world’s most densely packed urban hubs.
It’s nearly impossible to walk down the streets of Hong Kong and not see buildings surrounded by bamboo scaffolding – a construction material that’s celebrated for its flexibility, low cost and sustainability.
Bamboo scaffolding dates back to at least the Han dynasty around 2,000 years ago, and has been used to build some of the city’s tallest and most iconic skyscrapers, like Norman Foster’s HSBC headquarters.
While it is considered a treasured Hong Kong tradition, it’s recently drawn scrutiny for being combustible and prone to deterioration over time. That’s despite disasters like this being extremely rare in Hong Kong, which has a strong track record when it comes to building safety – thanks to high quality construction and the strict enforcement of building regulations.
The cause of the fire at Tai Po district is not yet known, but authorities have arrested three people linked to a construction company accused of “gross negligence.” At the time of the blaze, the complex was under renovation and encased in bamboo scaffolding and safety netting.
“Bamboo is definitely a flammable material. This is a very dry season in Hong Kong, so, the likelihood of ignition of this bamboo is very high. Once it’s ignited, the fire spread will be super-fast,” said Xinyan Huang, associate professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering.
The bamboo poles are also “vertically oriented, so the fire is basically spreading up without any resistance,” he added.
Hong Kong leader John Lee later told reporters that the government is going to inspect all bamboo scaffolding in the city in the wake of the deadly blaze, and that city officials were meeting to discuss a move to metal scaffolding.
Officials added that they suspect other construction materials found at the apartments – including protective nets, canvas, and plastic covers – failed to meet safety standards.
Police found the construction company name on flammable polystyrene boards that firefighters found blocking some windows at the apartment complex. The director of fire services said the presence of the boards was “unusual.”
Authorities are now investigating whether the polystyrene boards and other flammable material may have contributed to the inferno.
The bamboo debate
This year has seen heightened discussion of the future of bamboo scaffolding. Hong Kong’s Development Bureau recently announced that 50% of new public building projects erected from March onwards would need to use metal scaffolding to “better protect workers” and align with modern construction standards in “advanced cities.”
There were 24 deaths related to bamboo scaffolding from January 2018 to August 2025, according to Hong Kong’s Labour Department.
That announcement had more to do with worker safety than fire hazards – but the latter was brought to the fore in October after another building covered in scaffolding caught fire in Hong Kong’s central business district. Afterward, authorities said they did not see any obvious structural hazards when they inspected the site, but said an investigation was underway to determine whether all construction materials were up to grade, according to public broadcaster RTHK.
Some observers around the world may be confused why Hong Kong – a glittering financial hub – hadn’t phased out bamboo sooner. The hashtag “Why Hong Kong still uses bamboo scaffolding” trended on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Thursday, with many calling on the city’s government to follow the lead of mainland Chinese authorities – who banned the use of bamboo scaffolding in 2022.
But the move to pull back on bamboo scaffolding drew backlash from local residents, many of whom noted that the technique is a cultural heritage that needs to be maintained.
The scaffolding is almost ubiquitous on the streets, a striking visual complement to the near-constant building and re-building that has defined Hong Kong’s character for decades.
Aside from helping develop Hong Kong’s modern structures, bamboo has also played an integral role in building temporary Cantonese opera theaters.
Some construction workers and unions also challenged the notion that bamboo was unsafe, pointing to stringent safety regulations.
All bamboo scaffolding projects are required by a government code to follow guidelines that are regularly updated. They specify the thickness of the bamboo, the minimum strength of nylon strips used for tying platforms together, the proper spacing between poles, and many more details.
Among these rules is a requirement that all protective nets, screens, tarps and sheets used to cover the facade of buildings “should have appropriate fire retardant properties in compliance with a recognized standard,” the law reads. That code is not a law – although non-compliance can carry consequences in any criminal proceedings.
Hong Kong’s leader, John Lee, said at a news conference that a task force would investigate “whether the building’s exterior walls meet the fire-retardant standard.”
“If there’s any wrongdoing, we’ll pursue accountability in accordance with laws and regulations,” he added.
As investigators continue their probe, Huang, the professor, said the initial cause is less important than the external factors that allowed a small, isolated flame to spread across seven buildings and kill dozens.
“I think the cause of the fire is not so critical because the building is designed to handle random fire incidents – but it is not designed to handle such a fast fire spread outside the building, and eventually spread back into the building,” he said, pointing to similarities with the devastating 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in West London.
Several other experts voiced similar sentiments.
“While determining the source of ignition is going to be an important part of the investigation for the interest of the public, it is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of this disaster,” said Anwar Orabi, a lecturer in fire safety engineering at The University of Queensland, who said he had lived in Hong Kong for several years.
“What matters most here is that the fire was able to spread beyond the spot and building where it started,” he added. “Many factors could have contributed to this, including the scaffolding, which may have provided a ‘highway’ for the fire to travel vertically, and a warm nest for embers from adjacent structures to ignite.”
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