Wang Fuk Court fire report: forged net certificates, foam boards and inspections the contractor knew about in advance

What the committee found

• The works. A renovation contract worth more than HK$330 million covered the external walls of all eight 31-storey blocks. All eight were wrapped in bamboo scaffolding, nets and sheeting at the same time. The fire spread to seven of them.
• Scaffold nets. The committee says fire-retardant nets were suspected to have been swapped for ones that were not fire-retardant. Certificates for the nets that were suspected to be forged were accepted, sent by messaging app, without checking the batch and without lab testing. The report also says failed burn tests were hidden and inspection video was deleted.
• Inspections announced in advance. The checking unit warned the site before its visits, so non-compliant material could be swapped out before inspectors arrived. At one hearing, the inquiry was told about a net test where the net kept burning for about 10 seconds. The limit is under 4 seconds, but the certificate showed 0 seconds.
• Foam boards. The windows were covered with foam boards that were not fire-retardant, for about 15 months. The committee said that is too long to call temporary. Hong Kong had no fire-retardancy standard for temporary materials such as foam boards and toe-boards.
• Escape routes. Access openings were cut into fire-rated escape staircases for the workers' convenience, which weakened compartmentation and the escape routes. The committee heard that almost all fire safety measures failed on the day.
• Supervision. The job was classed as lower-risk "minor works", so it did not need the checking unit's approval and consent. The committee found that supervision by the consultant and registered inspector was largely missing. It named the main contractor, the engineering consultant and a registered inspector as carrying the greatest responsibility.
• Government. Four bodies share part of the responsibility: the Housing Bureau's Independent Checking Unit, the Buildings Department, the Fire Services Department and the Labour Department. The checking unit carries the largest share. Officials mishandled 46 resident complaints, in some cases by sending them back to the people being complained about.
• Ignition. According to ABC News, the report says the fire was most likely started by a glowing source, probably a cigarette, that lit paper materials on a flat roof. Smoking on site had been a repeated complaint.

The committee made 120 recommendations. The first ones include bans on combustible foam boards on windows and external walls, no new openings in escape stairs and lift lobbies (or a temporary fire barrier that matches the original fire resistance), and phased external works on large multi-block jobs. More than 40 pages were redacted because of the criminal cases, and the full report will be released when those cases end. Charges, including manslaughter, have been filed against individuals and companies. None of them has been proven in court.

Sources frame the blame differently. Some lead with the contractor and consultant, others with government supervision. The report covers both. Reports of the consultant's company name are also not the same from one outlet to the next.

Why this matters for QA/QC

Look at the findings as an inspector and you will see a material control failure, not a firefighting failure. The nets on the building were not the nets on the certificate. Nobody matched the batch. The samples came from places the contractor expected to be checked. Right after the fire, the first tests said the nets met the code, but those samples came from an area the fire had not reached. When officials took 20 samples from upper, middle and lower floors, 7 of them failed.

Most sites treat temporary materials as "not ours". Nets, sheeting, protection boards and hoarding often skip the submittal and receiving checks that rebar or concrete go through. This fire shows that what you put on a building for a year can matter as much as what stays there. It also shows that an inspection the contractor knows about in advance tests how well the contractor prepares, not how well the work was done.

A forged certificate is easy to make. Checking it with the lab that supposedly issued it takes five minutes. Asking for a fresh sample from the 25th floor takes a bit more effort. Both cost much less than trusting a PDF.

I'll come back to this when the full report is published.

Sources: news.gov.hk: Wang Fuk Court fire report released · The Standard: six major deficiencies · The Standard: inquiry condemns contractor and consultant · RTHK: departments share blame · ABC News · Bastille Post: immediate recommendations · The Standard: net test hearing · Hong Kong Free Press · NBC News: netting samples. Criminal proceedings are ongoing; we report only the committee's findings and confirmed facts.