Badea Abu Al-Naja Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – Civil Defense teams controlled a fire that broke out Wednesday morning in the courtyard of a house in Jeddah's Al-Baghdadiah district. The inferno occurred east of Madinah Road, said spokesman for the Civil Defense in Makkah region Col. Saeed Sarhan. The Civil Defense operations room in Jeddah were notified of the fire at 8.28 a.m. on Wednesday. The report said smoke was billowing from a ramshackle house in the district. Firefighting and rescue teams, three in total, were sent to the location. Moments after the teams moved toward the scene, the operations room received information from one of the teams that thick smoke was rising and could be seen from a distance. The Civil Defense teams were then given four extra firefighting teams, bringing the total to six. Also, the rescue teams were increased to four. They fought the fire using foam and restricted it to an area of 80 square meters. The rescue teams combed the area in case there were people trapped in the fire. They also searched adjacent ramshackle houses that were caught in the smoke. The use of a retractable ladder vehicle prevented the fire from spreading and it was eventually extinguished. Investigation teams then worked to assess the damage. Preliminary investigations showed that the fire broke out from stored sponge used to make upholstery.
Meanwhile, Sarhan said at 2.07 a.m. on Wednesday, the Civil Defense operations room in Jeddah were notified that a building under construction in the Al-Andalus district in Jeddah had collapsed. Rescue teams and machinery rushed to the scene. It turned out that the roof of the three-story building collapsed. The rescue teams searched for casualties under the debris until dawn. The deputy general manager of the company carrying out the project said there were no workers when the collapse occurred and all were accounted for.
