Unexpectedly Small Sparks Become Big, Kills 8 Miftahul Khoiri Students, Here's The Chronology

Officers brought fire victims to Miftahul Khoirot Islamic Boarding School, Karawang. (ANTARA/HO-Karawang Regency Government)

KARAWANG – The Head of Public Relations of the West Java Police, Grand Commissioner Pol. Ibrahim Tompo, said that the initial information obtained from the Miftahul Khoiri Islamic Boarding School fire started from a spark from a fan cable. However, his party is still investigating to determine the cause of the fire that killed 8 students on Monday, February 21, at 13.00 western Indonesia time.

When contacted, Ibrahim Tompo explained the chronology of a small fire turning into a big one. According to him, one of the witnesses saw that the fan cable was shorted and sparks were emitted. The fire fell onto the mattress and eventually caught fire and spread to other flammable materials.

“(So initially) the fan shorted the sparks. Where the splash fell on the mattress. Then after the mattress caught fire, it spread to the trash can and wardrobe. And immediately burned the roof of the 2nd floor. This eventually spread to other rooms. So there were two rooms that burned in one building,” said Ibrahim when contacted, Monday, February 21.

Ibrahim confirmed that in that incident only one building caught fire. The fire was extinguished so that it did not spread to other buildings.

"So there are 8 buildings inside the Islamic boarding school, one of which is the building. It was the two rooms that caught fire, so they didn't spread to other buildings," he said.

Previously reported, a member of the Cilamaya Kulon Sub-district Satpol PP named Heri Setiawan said that the fire occurred during the day when the students were taking a nap.

"The information is that there were several students trapped inside the building when the fire broke out," he said.

Meanwhile, firefighters from the Karawang BPBD managed to extinguish the fire for more than two hours.

According to the information gathered, 8 students were killed in the incident, and three students were injured. The local police are still investigating.