Huge blaze destroys prestigious Arab film studio in Egypt

CAIRO: A fire in Cairo has destroyed one of the Arab world’s most prestigious and oldest film production houses, founded 80 years ago.
Flames overtook the Al-Ahram Studio in Cairo’s Giza district, burning everything inside and spreading to three surrounding buildings, which were evacuated before the blaze reached them.
Residents of neighboring buildings were still sleeping on the ground in nearby streets at dawn on Saturday.
Security sources said that there were no deaths, though some people suffering from smoke inhalation were treated at the scene.
Local media reported that the fire broke out 24 hours after filming finished for a Ramadan television series.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, and firefighters needed more than six hours to extinguish it, according to the security sources.
Yusif Mohammed, a neighbor who witnessed the fire, told AFP that flames “reached the surrounding buildings before fire trucks arrived.”
“No one knows what really happened” to cause it, he said.
The fire erupted after the production team of the series “El-Moallem,” starring Egyptian star Mustafa Shaban, concluded a regular filming day.
Egypt’s Premier Mostafa Madbouly, along with several top officials and ministers, rushed to the site to oversee the firefighting efforts, assess the damage, and expedite the compensation process.
An official statement said that the premier and his colleagues toured the site and the affected residential buildings.
They were briefed about the situation by the governor of Giza who said that the blaze significantly damaged the facades of seven buildings.
The statement added that the premier ordered the urgent formation of a committee to prepare estimates about the time and cost to restore the buildings to their pre-fire condition.
He announced compensation for the affected families to cover the rent until the buildings are rehabilitated to their original state.
A local resident told Arab News that a woman saw the flames in the studio and tried to call the studio’s security guard and others for help, but before action could be taken the fire engulfed the entire studio and spread to nearby residential apartments.
The witness added: “What happened was that those filming inside the studio were shooting a scene with flares, but as we know, the studio is all made of wood, and I assume the flares set a small fire to the wood that escalated over time.”
Security forces evacuated a number of workers and technicians from the studio after the fire.
Al-Ahram Studio was founded in 1944 and built on 27,000 sq m containing three production stages, a screening room and an editing suite.
Many Egyptian films and television series were produced there.
In the 1950s, Egypt was the third-biggest film producer in the world.