The fire engulfing the used tyres which were stacked at the stairway of the building.
MIRI: More than 20 tenants of a building at Jalan Mill Rice here had a terrifying morning yesterday when fire engulfed stacks of used tyres at its ground floor stairway.
Most of the affected tenants are workers of a shopping mall.
The tenants are renting the first and second floors of the building, while a car repair workshop occupies most of the ground floor area.
One of the first floor tenants, Arif Nugroho, 23, an Indonesian, said he was asleep but was awakened by sudden loud voices shouting ‘fire’.
“I got up…and saw plumes of thick smoke coming from outside my room…I panicked and did not know what to do…finally I decided to jump off the balcony,” he related.
Another tenant, Shanti Nuraisah, 38, said she had smelt burning smell coming from downstairs and immediately grabbed her four-year-old son and fled her rented room.
“Most of the male tenants jumped off the building (from the first and second floors) from the balcony as they feared for their safety…luckily, I saw a ladder nearby and immediately climbed down to the ground floor with my son (using the ladder),” she said.
One fire engine from Miri Fire and Rescue Department dashed to the scene upon receiving a distress call on the incident around 6.15am and put out the fire several minutes later.
No injuries had been reported in the incident as all tenants managed to escape from the building safely.