Sentul fire destroys 31 houses, leaves 100 homeless

S. Amaran did a reverse Wee Willie Winkie of the nursery rhyme fame as 31 squatter houses in Kampung Puah Bahagia in Sentul went up in flames early today, leaving about 100 people homeless.

The 47-year-old resident of the village ran around the neighbourhood knocking on the doors of the houses to wake up the occupants after he saw thick smoke billowing from a neighbour's house at 12.30 am.

He said he banged on the doors of the houses because many of the occupants had gone to sleep. (In the nursery rhyme, Wee Willie Winkie makes sure that all the children have gone to bed because it's past eight o'clock.)

Amaran said the residents could do little to put out the fire because the village had been without water supply since 2 pm the previous day.

Nevertheless, he tried to douse the flames by using water stored in a tank but there was not enough to spare and the fire spread fast.

Amaran lost valuables worth almost RM45,000, including a motorcycle, a laptop computer and jewellery.

Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue operations centre chief Samsol Maarif Saibani said the 65 firemen rushed there in 10 trucks had difficulty extinguishing the fire as there were no fire hydrants and a proper source of water.

"We had to use the water from the Bandar Baru Sentul flats about 500 metres away, and brought the fire under control at 2.30 am. The affected houses were almost totally destroyed. No one was injured," he said.

Resident Mohd Zakwan Aiman Mohd Tajudin, 23, said he was watching television when he heard the shouts alerting the villagers about the fire.

"I quickly woke up my parents and younger siblings," said the student of a private university who lost important documents to the fire.