The Civil Defense has said that operations to fully extinguish the fire that broke out Thursday at a warehouse containing aircraft spare parts belonging to Saudi Arabian Airlines have been completed. Jeddah Civil Defense chief Abdullah Al-Jeddawi said that the cooling and sealing of the 18,000-square-meter site was over, and that investigators were still working to establish the cause of the fire. “The warehouse contained a huge number of stored items and the stock-taking process is currently going on to assess the extent of losses,” Al-Jeddawi said. “The fire started in the outside yard area, not inside.” According to Al-Jeddawi, the open-air area also contained oxygen, nitrogen and gas containers which should have been stored inside in specially designated areas. “This presented a particular danger to firefighters,” he said. “They should not be stored there where they are exposed to sunlight.” He added that the warehouse was insured and also had a fire warning system which for reasons unknown was not operating at the time of the blaze. Saudi Airlines has yet to issue a statement on the fire, although one official said at the time of the blaze that most of the contents lost were “old and out-of-date spare parts”. Any speculation as to the cost of losses, he said, was “pure conjecture” until expert analysts were able to fully assess the situation. No casualties were reported in the fire.
