It was about 7:05 pm when the distant sounds of a fire engine prompted me to open the balcony door. As I moved into my balcony to find out the root cause of the commotion, I could see fire blazing out of the balcony of the sixth floor of the opposite building. About 4-5 fire trucks with blazing sirens were entering street number 3, Yousuf al Badr Street, Block 10, Salmiya. I scurried down to get the first hand information.

While the sixth floor was on fire, another issue was that some of the fire shoots were falling not only onto the floors below but also onto a big electric transformer directly underneath.

More and more people started to crowd around to see the commotion, while the residents of the building were being evacuated.

A big catastrophe was averted, thanks to the competent firemen. Sources on site tell that the information was relayed to them at 7:00 pm and at 7:15 pm they were at the building. The firemen split into two groups. While one group tried to extinguish the fire from the outside with the help of a water jet the other broke into the locked house and heroically extinguished the fire from the inside.

I spoke to the officer in charge Mr. Abdullah who was handing water bottles to the worn out team.

"We managed to extinguish the fire before it spread. It will take another hour to accurately ascertain the cause of the fire, but a probable reason could be an unextinguished cigarette butt."

Luckily, there were no causalities as the residents of the flat were outside and before the fire could do further damage, it was extinguished.

On behalf of the Indian community, I thank Mr. Abdullah & his team and the Kuwait fire department for promptly acting and successfully extinguishing the fire.