A fireman working to douse the flames.
SRI AMAN: A family of five was made homeless after their wooden house at Kampung Muhibbah Phase III, along Jalan STC near here, was gutted by fire on Saturday.
Sri Aman Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) chief Jilin Itar said the incident occurred around 9.30pm when the entire family was at home.
He said Bomba personnel arrived at the scene at 9.35pm to discover nearly 80 per cent of the house had already been gutted.
“The fire fighters brought the situation under control and prevented the fire from spreading to the adjacent houses,” said Jilin when contacted yesterday.
House owner, Khairul Kwang Abdullah, and his family were unharmed in the incident, which he said started while he was frying fish crackers.
“I was frying ‘keropok lekor’ (fish crackers) in the kitchen when the oil in the pan suddenly caught fire,” he said, adding that he panicked and tried to extinguish the fire using a bucket of water while asking his son to contact Bomba.
Khairul then made a second attempt to extinguish the fire, spraying it with a water hose.
However, his second attempt only caused the flames to spread to the kitchen wall before engulfing his house, forcing the whole family to vacate the house to safety.