Tai Po probe: fire contractor admits it was ‘not ideal’ to skip on-site checks

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.An independent committee examining the causes of Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades, which claimed 168 lives at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, begins its second round of hearings on Wednesday.Chung Kit-man, director and engineer of Victory Fire Engineering, the contractor responsible for the estate’s fire service equipment, testified again on conflicting accounts over the draining of its fire water tanks.Keung Sai-ming, an assistant director for licensing and certification at the Fire Services Department, is also set to testify on Wednesday.Leung Ping-kay, a director at China Status Development and Engineering, the contractor that applied to deactivate the estate’s fire hydrant and hose reel system, is also scheduled to give testimony.The first round of eight hearings focused on the deactivation of the estate’s fire alarms, one of the “six human factors” identified by lead counsel Victor Dawes as contributing to the tragedy.Evidence showed that the main power switch for the fire service pump and alarms serving all eight blocks had been turned off by estate manager ISS EastPoint Properties to allow renovation works on a rooftop fire water tank.A week before the blaze, Victory Fire Engineering discovered the system had been switched off but took no action to notify the Fire Services Department or press the management company to restore the alarms, the committee heard.The blaze, which started on November 26 last year and raged through seven of the estate’s eight towers for about 43 hours, killed 168 people and displaced nearly 5,000 residents.Follow our live updates on the ninth day of the evidential hearing. coverage: