A cigarette butt thrown without being extinguished on an accumulation of combustible materials is the most likely origin of the fire that in November 2025 left 168 dead in the Wang Fuk Court residential complex, in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong. This is stated in the latest report from the independent committee investigating the incident, released this Saturday.
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The document rules out an intentional origin. After eliminating other sources of ignition — including electrical short circuits and spontaneous combustion — the experts concluded that it was an accidental fire.
Lee Wing-man, head of the Forensic Sciences Division of the Hong Kong Government Laboratory, presented photographs showing that the exterior walls of the Wang Cheong block suffered significantly greater damage than the interior ones, with concrete spalling due to prolonged high temperatures.
According to Lee, this damage pattern demonstrates that the fire spread from the outside to the inside of the building, and not that it originated inside a dwelling.
The exact starting point, however, does not seem clear. One report places the focus in the light well of the building’s podium. Another, based on the text released by the Xinhua agency, locates it on an exterior platform adjacent to two apartments, covered by up to two meters of debris, including safety nets and foam panels used to cover the windows.
In the images analyzed by the investigators, large amounts of packaging materials — cardboard, bags, and plastic sheets — can be seen alongside several cigarette butts. The exact time of ignition could not be determined. Witness statements and security camera footage place the start of the fire between 2:30 and 2:43 p.m. that afternoon.
The fire began on the afternoon of November 26, 2025, at Wang Fuk Court, a housing estate built in 1984 with a capacity for 4,600 residents. At the time of the incident, the blocks were wrapped in scaffolding and tarps due to exterior rehabilitation work. The last flames were not extinguished until 44 hours later.
With 168 fatalities, it is the deadliest fire recorded in Hong Kong in nearly eight decades.
The investigators linked the magnitude of the tragedy to the materials installed in the construction: the tarps did not pass fire resistance tests and the polyurethane foam sheets acted as an accelerant. This was compounded by the degradation of the complex’s fire protection systems.
The committee preliminarily identified up to six human factors. Among them, the deactivation of alarms and fire pumps days before the incident, as part of repair work on the water tanks located on the rooftops. It also examined possible breaches of maintenance obligations by the contractor.
In January of this year, local authorities reported 22 arrests by the police in connection with the case, 16 of them charged with homicide. Meanwhile, the anti-corruption brigade had arrested another 14 people.
Around the same time, the Hong Kong Secretary for Labour, Chris Sun, announced that he would propose a total ban on smoking in construction areas.
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