After five hours of raging, a large fire that broke out at 4 am this morning at the Pou Yuen Industrial Park in Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City has been put out by 500 firefighters.

>> Fire rages next to HCMC backpackers’ quarter The first first occurred on the 4th and 5th floors of a building in the park and spread rapidly.

Hundreds of firefighters, thirty fire engines and two ladder trucks have been sent to the scent to extinguish the fire, which was still spreading at 8 am.

Thousands of workers of many companies in the park, located in Tan Tao Ward on National Highway 1A, could not work due to the fire.

At 8:30 am, as the fire continued to spread, the HCMC Fire Prevention and Control Department mobilized 10 more fire engines and three more ladder trucks to the park. The department later said it has mobilized all possible forces to the scene to extinguish the blaze. At 8:40 am, the department said the fire has been basically put under control, as firefighters could prevent it from spreading. About 20 minutes later, the fire was put out totally. Colonel Le Tan Buu, deputy director of the department, said that the fire burned about 4,000 square meters of the park’s two zones A4 and A5 which cover a total area of 42,000 square meters.

About 500 firefighters and a total of 68 fire engines have taken part in the extinguishing, Buu said. Initial information said that the fire has burnt down thousands of square meters of factories. There was no casualties reported, and concerned agencies are calculating the damage caused by the fire, which they said could have been caused by a short circuit. The police are investigating the cause of the fire.