28/11/2025
用自己有限嘅英文整咗個transcript，歡迎指正🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️
Is bamboo scaffolding the culprit of the blaze?
In fact, the burning point of bamboo is around 260 to 290°C, it doesn’t get ignited immediately. While bamboo is composed by dense fibres with slow heat conduction speed. Pictures at the scene showed that the majority of the green mesh was burnt, but most of the bamboo scaffolding was just blackened and still intact. With blaze in this scale, changing from bamboo scaffolding to metal ones doesn’t really help. The heat-conducting ability of metal will bring the heat to other spots within the scene. And the flame could spread the blaze. Metal scaffolding was used in Notre-Dame de Paris, while the blaze had brought a major deformation to it. Bamboo scaffolding is not the main issue in this situation; the mesh shouldn’t be the main issue as well, since a normal mesh should be qualified for certain flammability requirements. A mesh is required no matter bamboo or metal scaffolding is used.
The actual reason this blaze was occured is human. Back in 6th and 16th of Sep 2024, residents of Wang F*k Court had already making complaints to the authorities, expressing their concerns regarding the flammability of the mesh. But the responses they were getting is that the risk of the mesh having a fire hazard is comparatively low. And the rules they are applying do not include any fire-resistant standard for the mesh and any other materials. In 2024, Jason P**n made a video testing the fire-resistant ability of the meshes of other estates while major repairing was carried out, it was shown that the other meshes were very flammable. He did make complaints to the authorities but everytime it fell on deaf ears. The chairperson of “Scaffolding Workers Union” said that a piece of fire-resistant mesh is $90 while a piece of normal mesh with no fire-resistant ability is costing $50 and it is reusable. It is estimated that the cutting corners can save $4 Million HKD. The repairing costs of Wang F*k court this time was a whopping $330 Million HKD, each flat owner need to share the cost of $156 to 182K HKD. There was a suspicion of bid rigging, with the questioning of fire safety. When facing these questions, district councillor and Owner’s corporation consultant Peggy Wong Pik-kiu, she just responded them as spreading rumours and misleading the public, the residents should be supporting the Owner’s corporation together.
Bamboo scaffolding provides a flexibility of setting up and removal, given the narrow environment of streets and alleys. Light in weight and high wind-resistant ability, without bring extra load to the building itself. The cost of bamboo scaffolding is only one fifths of metal scaffolding. It is also one of Hong Kong’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, a big part of the beautiful view and scene in Hong Kong. It had actually constructed Hong Kong throughout the years. But it becomes the scapegoat of this blaze and no one knows what is going to become the next scapegoat.
At the end, RIP and everyone stay strong.
