A fire destroyed a mattress warehouse and the 500 mattresses it held in Kakab II commune of Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district on March 16, though no one was injured in the blaze.

Neth Vantha, director of the National Police’s Department of Fire Prevention, Extinguishing and Rescue, said on March 16 that a mattress warehouse in Kakab II commune managed by Sok Saran was completely destroyed on March 16 by a fire caused by an electrical fault.

He said that the mattress storage area was 750 square meters and made of galvanised iron and it contained about 500 mattresses that were all completely torched.

Thankfully, however, the fire did not spread to the neighbour’s houses nearby and no one was killed or injured in the incident.

He said the firefighting operation lasted only one hour. Firefighters used 28 fire trucks and the equivalent of 126 cubic metres of water to extinguish the fire.

Vantha said he could not estimate how much the damage costs would be because the warehouse manager had not reported that information.

He said that the warehouse was packed with mattresses made in a nearby factory, but the fire did not spread that far because it was put out quickly.

“The mattresses are produced in the factory nearby. But the production site was not affected because water trucks arrived on time and tried to put it out together. If they were late, it could have been a big risk for the houses nearby,” said Kakab II commune police chief Chreng Thy.

Por Sen Chey deputy district governor Pang Lida, also present at the scene, said as far as he was aware the warehouse held no material other than mattresses.

“The fire burned the warehouse which then collapsed. When we sprayed water, the fire went out and [the burned mattress remnants] disintegrated to resin and got pushed to one side. So it looks like there isn’t much left in there,” he said.