19 houses gutted in fire

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Indonesia | Jakarta | Sat, October 20 2012, 5:38 PM

Fire gutted nineteen houses in a densely populated area in Jl. Angke Indah, Tambora, West Jakarta at 11:45 on Saturday, there were no immediate reports of casualties.

According to Sutarno, head of operations with the West Jakarta Firefighter Agency, the blaze is suspected to have been caused by a short circuit in one of the houses.

"Since most houses were adjacent to one another, the fire spread easily," he said as quoted by tempo.co.

He added that firefighters were able to bring the fire under control at around 2 p.m. after deploying 28 fire appliances.

Some firefighters reportedly suffered from minor injuries while trying to extinguish the fire.(iwa)