🔥Fire in our Bangkok Condo | People Trapped on Balconies

On February 06, 2024 at approximately 14:56 local time, a fire broke out in a condo on the 5th floor of the Focus Ploenchit Condos in Bangkok, Thailand, located in the Nana district.

This was in the unit directly above our Airbnb rental. We heard crashing sounds in the apartment above and a few minutes later smoke appeared on our balcony and in our unit.

We looked in the common hallway and it was quickly filling with smoke. We immediately grabbed a few important items (passports, hard drives, etc.) and evacuated the building. Along the way we attempting to alert others on our floor of the fire.

Apparently as a result of there being no functioning fire alarms or smoke detectors in the building, a few people were trapped on their balconies until the fire department arrived approximately 20 minutes after we evacuated the building.

To our knowledge there were no serious injuries despite seeing emergency responders rushing in with at least two rescue stretchers.

With seemingly no functioning fire alarms, if this had happened at night, the outcome could have been far worse.

The very next day we plan to locate and buy a portable smoke detector that will travel with us everywhere we stay from now on.