Three arrested on suspicion of manslaughter following a five-alarm fire in Hong Kong’s Tai Po

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire which broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a residential estate in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong’s New Territories on November 26, 2025.

The death toll from the five-alarm fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has risen to 44, including one firefighter, authorities confirmed on Thursday. In the early hours of the morning, police arrested three local people on suspicion of manslaughter. The suspects are senior figures at the engineering firm responsible for maintenance work at the housing estate, according to local media reports.

Police arrested three persons in charge of the engineering company, including two directors and an engineering consultant, aged between 52 and 68. A reporter at the scene saw one suspect, wearing a hood, being escorted away by officers, the reports said.

The Hong Kong Police Force’s New Territories North Regional Headquarters
Crime has launched a full investigation, a senior superintendent Chung Lai Yee in the district said during a press conference on early Thursday, RTHK reported.

In addition to the Fire Services Department’s findings that protective netting, plastic sheeting, waterproof tarpaulins, and other materials installed on the building’s exterior were suspected of failing to meet fire safety standards, police also discovered during their on-site investigation that the windows outside the lift lobbies on every floor of a nearby block—one not directly affected by the blaze—had been sealed with foam panels, Chung said.

She said foam is a highly flammable material that could accelerate the spread of a fire, and investigators do not rule out the possibility that it contributed to the rapid escalation of the blaze.

The massive five-alarm fire at Wang Fuk Court continued to burn for more than 16 hours and remained unextinguished as of early Thursday, leaving multiple dead and injured. The Fire Services Department and the police provided an overnight briefing on rescue operations and the ongoing investigation, according to local media HK01.

Firefighters were conducting an upward assault and search from the lower floors of the buildings. said Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director (operations) of the Hong Kong Fire Services Department, at a press conference early Thursday.

Seven of the eight residential blocks at Wang Fu Court caught fire. Of these, four buildings are now reported to have their fires under control. Firefighters have managed to advance to the mid-levels of the remaining three blocks. Firefighting and search-and-rescue teams are operating simultaneously inside the structures, Chan revealed at the press conference.

Chan said the earliest estimate for reaching the rooftops of the affected towers is between midday and dusk on Thursday, depending on conditions.

Preliminary findings suggest that a construction engineering company had installed the materials as part of ongoing repair work. There is reason to believe that the persons in charge displayed serious negligence, which directly contributed to the uncontrolled spread of the fire and the resulting heavy casualties, Chung said. The three suspects—two company directors and an engineering consultant, aged between 52 and 68—were taken into custody for further questioning.

Chung added that work to handle and identify the remains of the victims is still underway. Police are working with forensic pathologists to expedite examinations and facilitate identification for family members.

She stressed that police are treating the case with the utmost seriousness. “Once rescue operations conclude, we will work closely with the Fire Services Department, the Government Laboratory, and other relevant departments to collect evidence and carry out a comprehensive investigation,” she said. “We will deploy maximum resources to determine the cause of the fire as soon as possible.”