Many citizen cars parked on the roadside. We also difficult to find water resources thus we had to connect water hose to the scene

Fire gutted 3 semi-permanent houses in a densely populated area on Jalan Penegak 5, RT 07/02, Palmerah Urban Village, Matraman, East Jakarta, at 2.40 AM on Monday (6/2). There were no immediate reports of casualties in the incident.

Those burned houses are owned by Suwarti (70), Cipto (65), and Iin Suherman (70). The incident occurred when 16 homeowners were sleeping. Luckily, a security guard who was on duty saw the flames and immediately woke the homeowners and local citizens. They then scrambled to save their life and tried to evacuated valuables.

Dian, (30), a local citizen immediately went to the office of East Jakarta Fire and Disaster Handling Sub-Department, which is only about 500 meters from the scene to report the incident.

Afterwards, the East Jakarta Fire and Disaster Handling Sub-Department deployed 20 fire trucks to the scene. The firemen had difficulties to put out the flames due to narrow access and lack of water resources at the site. Even, they had to connect the water hose to the fire location.

"Many citizen cars parked on the roadside. We also difficult to find water resources thus we had to connect water hose to the scene," said Head of Operation Section for East Jakarta Fire and Disaster Handling Sub-Department, Mulyanto. The officer had to suck water from the swimming pool in one of the houses near the site.

About 20 minutes, firemen finally managed to control the flames. "Temporary allegation, fire is triggered by electricity short-circuit from Suwarti's house. The loss is about Rp 250 million," he told.