Firefighters Work Hard to Extinguish Blaze
According to reports, at around 11 a.m. yesterday, an old factory building of a furniture plant in Lijiatuo, Banan District, suddenly caught fire. Due to the large amount of flammable materials stored inside, the flames quickly spread over a wide area. It took the fire department an hour to put out the fire, and approximately 200 square meters of the factory were burned down to just the framework. Witnesses reported that three suspicious men had been seen loitering outside the factory before the fire started.
The burning factory belonged to Chongqing Furniture Factory No. 5 in Lijiatuo and was currently rented out in sections to several companies as factory space. Inside, there were large quantities of flammable materials such as wood shavings and foam. Witnesses stated that the flames reached the roof within minutes, spreading rapidly due to the wind, with thick smoke billowing into the sky.
Several workers nearby said that the area was undergoing demolition, and apart from this factory and one or two adjacent buildings, all other houses had already been leveled. It was rarely visited by people. However, about 20 minutes before the incident, they unexpectedly saw three men wandering around the factory premises.
When asked what they were doing, the men claimed they were scavenging for recyclables. The workers noted that these three men did not carry baskets, shovels, or any tools typically used by scavengers, nor were their clothes particularly worn-out, making them quite different from common scavengers. Within ten minutes of their departure, the fire broke out.
Currently, the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
By reporter Zhu Liang