Police Investigate Causes Of Burning Of 15 Houses And Stores In Siak Riau Rugikan Billions Of Rupiah

Illustration. Personnel from the Yogyakarta City Fire Department extinguished the fire that devoured the building. (Instagram @damkarjogjaspecial)

RIAU - Police are investigating the cause of the fire of 15 houses and shops in Sungai Apit District in Siak, Riau Province.

"We have made efforts to investigate, the origin of the fire or the cause of the fire," said the Head of Siak Police, AKBP Asep Sujarwadi, Monday, August 7, which was confiscated by Antara.

Asep said that at this time his party could not conclude the cause of the incident because the police were still investigating.

"But it is still in progress, so I cannot conclude or provide statements, the cause of the fire, we are still investigating," he added.

The fire in Siak or to be precise in front of the Syarifah Sembilan Green Open Space Park (RTH) occurred on Sunday 6 August at around 15.30 WIB.

The incident did not cause any casualties. However, residents suffered material losses reaching billions of rupiah.

The Head of the Public Relations Sub-Division of the Siak Police, Ubaedillah, said that the results of the investigation and interviews with witnesses revealed that there was an electrical installation in the burning shophouse building that had been installed for a long time and was suspected to be inconsistent with PLN standards.

According to the chronology of the incident, a witness named Ali was in his shophouse and saw a lump of black smoke above his shophouse building. Seeing this incident, witness Ali called his wife to get out of the house immediately.

While in front of the shophouse, witness Ali saw a fire already burning from the shophouse next to him. The other shophouse residents panicked and ran out of the shophouse and saved items that could still be secured.

"At the time of the incident there were already many local residents and tried to extinguish the fire before the fire truck arrived at the fire site," Ubaedillah said in a press statement.

When officers arrived, the weather was hot and the strong winds caused the fire to spread to other shop houses. The condition of the shophouse was almost flattened to the ground and the owner was evacuated to a neighbor and relatives' house.