Three survivors of the fatal Wang Fuk Court blaze in November have testified at a public inquiry, recalling their narrow escapes from the burning housing estate without hearing any fire alarms. From left: Wang Cheong House resident Ko Yee-lui and Wang Shing House resident Leung Ho-hin talk with reporters after giving testimony at the Wang Fuk Court public hearings on March 24, 2026. Photos: Hans Tse/HKFP. The public hearings into the inferno that killed 168 people began calling witnesses on Tuesday afternoon, with three Wang Fuk Court residents giving testimony about their experiences during one of the city’s deadliest fires. See also: Claims gov’t ‘tipped off’ consultant over safety checks ‘groundless,’ lawyer tells Tai Po fire inquiry Victor Dawes, lead counsel for the independent committee presiding over the hearings, said the trio were chosen to give verbal evidence because their accounts were “more representative or unique,” after the committee reviewed residents’ written testimonies gathered through a questionnaire.
All three said that they had witnessed construction workers smoking at the Tai Po residential complex, but did not lodge a complaint themselves. “Many people had already complained, but that did not work,” Ko Yee-lui, a 24th-floor resident of Wang Cheong House, the first building to catch fire, said in Cantonese. Workers “would smoke nonetheless.” No water coming out of fire hose
Leung Ho-hin, who lived in Wang Shing House, testified that he felt unwell on that day and was resting at home when relatives texted him about the fire shortly after 3pm.
He heard debris falling outside but did not hear the fire alarm go off. He could not see flames through the gap between the foam boards that sealed his windows. He said that, through his front door peephole, he saw a couple try to use a corridor fire hose reel but failed. “I did not see any water coming out of it,” he said in Cantonese. People watch smoke coming from Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po on November 27, 2025, a day after the fire broke out at the housing estate. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. By 4pm, he saw smoke filling the corridor and decided to leave his flat. At that time, the smoke was at the level of his upper body, he said.
When he reached the ground-floor lobby, smoke was already filling the space. Outside, he saw a bicycle parking area engulfed in flames. He briefly retreated inside the lobby before escaping the building, eventually reaching safety under police instruction.
“We were expecting the renovation would be largely completed by March, which is now; the scaffolds and netting would be removed, and we could see the sky and neighbours again,” he said.
“But this fire has separated us, and we may never see some of [the neighbours] again.”
‘Blamed myself’
Tse Yuk-wa, who lived on the second floor of Wang Cheong House, was also resting at home when the blaze broke out. She lived near where authorities believe the fire began: a lightwell outside the first floor of the building.
Tse, who at times wept during her testimony, said she initially mistook the encroaching smoke for construction dust.
She fled with her two cats in a carrier only after she heard a “distant voice” alerting residents of the fire and calling her husband’s phone. However, she said she remained doubtful about the fire at that time because the fire alarm did not ring.
Tse said that with her hands full carrying the cats, she could not knock on her neighbours’ doors, and she met only one elderly woman in the stairwell. Both left the building together and did not see other people on the way out. Judge David Lok, chair of the independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, on February 5, 2026. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. “Once I looked back after I exited, smoke was already billowing from the entire Wang Cheong House,” she said in Cantonese. “I knew I couldn’t do anything, but all my neighbours were still up there.”
“I blamed myself because I could not return to alert them,” she said as she burst into tears.
Ko also said that people were not alerted about the fire as the fire alarm did not go off.
She said she smelled something burning and saw smoke creeping into her flat, adding that she took the lift because smoke had filled the fire exit stairwell.
“I cannot imagine how hopeless people were at that time, as all the fire safety systems were shut down,” she said, weeping. “And I regret deeply that I had not knocked on a single door.”