2 killed, another hurt in Madinah house fire

Zain Al-Abdeen Khaled
Saudi Gazette

MADINAH — A four-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl died and another youth was injured when a fire broke out in a rundown house in Al-Harrah Al-Gharbiyah in Madinah Tuesday morning.

The Civil Defense received an alert at 1:40 A.M. Tuesday on the breakout of a fire in an annex on the roof. The annex comprised of a hall and a room in a two-story ramshackle house in Al-Harrah Al-Gharbiyah. Three firefighting teams and one paramedic’s team rushed to the scene but not before the inferno had quickly spread and gutted the whole annex, resulting in the two deaths.

The youth suffered burns in different parts of his body and had to be rushed by the Red Crescent to King Fahd Hospital in Madinah.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the cause of the fire was probably a short circuit, Col. Khaled Al-Jihani, spokesman for Madinah Civil Defense, said.