Bangkok: A fire broke out in a large furniture processing warehouse in the Rom Bo Sang Handicraft Center area of Chiang Mai, causing damages of nearly 10 million baht. The cause was an electrical short circuit that caused a transformer to explode.
According to Thai News Agency, the fire erupted last midnight in the Mallika Carving Shop’s warehouse located in Ban Bo Sang, Soi 5, Ton Pao Subdistrict, San Kamphaeng District. This area is near the renowned Bo Sang Umbrella Handicraft Center, a popular tourist site in Chiang Mai Province. The warehouse contained a substantial amount of wood, which facilitated the rapid spread of the fire across the facility. Firefighters battled the blaze for over an hour, hindered by the flammable nature of wood chips and furniture, which generated intense heat and smoke. It took until morning to fully control the fire, requiring continuous water spraying to extinguish remaining embers and prevent reignition. An investigation into the fire’s cause and the total damage cost is ongoing.
The aftermath left the factory in ruins, with debris and charred remains of the roof, steel structures, and teak wood furniture. The facility was known for crafting intricate pieces, such as altar tables, chairs, and elaborate guest sets, each valued at tens to hundreds of thousands of baht. Notably, a guest set, worth half a million baht and a year in the making, was reduced to ashes.
Mr. Wanwin, a 42-year-old security guard and the first witness of the incident, recounted hearing noises around 1-2 a.m. Initially suspecting a burglary, he discovered the fire originating from the warehouse’s front. Meanwhile, Ms. Mallika, the 63-year-old owner of the shop, expressed her distress, noting that in over 30 years of business, this was the first catastrophe of such magnitude. She suspects an electrical short circuit and transformer explosion ignited the blaze amidst the warehouse’s paints, thinners, sawdust, and over a thousand pieces of nearly finished teak furniture. Fortunately, the shop had fire insurance in place to mitigate the financial impact of the estimated 10 million baht loss.