A 5-year-old girl died in a house fire in the Waziriya district of southern Jeddah, but her older sibling survived.
Civil Defense spokesman Col. Saeed Sarhan said the operations department received notification of the fire at 5:18 p.m. Four teams arrived on the scene to find two children alone inside the home, which had been locked by the parents.
He said just prior to the arrival of the fire teams, a neighbor, Ali Saeed Al-Zahrani, broke the locked door of the house and saved the 6-year-old child, who by then had suffered burns and a mild case of asphyxia.
The child, whose gender was not disclosed by Civil Defense officials, was resuscitated after the arrival of the teams to the site, and then taken by ambulance to hospital.
The fire and rescue teams worked to put out the fire despite the intensity of the smoke inside the house, according Sarhan.
Firefighters also continued working to isolate the fire from adjacent houses. He noted that during the ongoing search by the rescue personnel, they found the body of a girl having suffered from severe burns inside one of the rooms. She too was taken to hospital.
A preliminary investigation by First Lt. Ali Al-Zubaidi determined that the children were alone at home during the fire and the main door of the apartment was locked.
The investigation also indicated that the accident was likely caused by one of the two children. Al-Zubaidi did not elaborate.
The building was handed over to a representative of the Secretariat of Jeddah due to its fragile status.
Jeddah fire kills 5-year-old girl
