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Clifford Lo

Joyce Man

Pet owner not home when deadly fire breaks out in building next door
Thirty-one dogs and cats were killed when a fire broke out in a secluded Yuen Long village house early yesterday.
Fire and police officers were called to the two-storey house in Ko Po San Tsuen  off Kam Tin Road  at 1.54am after  the blaze broke out on the second floor.
It housed  42 pet cats and dogs, but no one lived there. The owner, Pang Feng-yee, 49, lives next door.
Firefighters had to break into the house and doused the flames at 2.22am. The blaze damaged an area of 9 metres by 4 metres, and killed 21 cats and 10 dogs.
Their badly charred carcasses lay amid embers, some still in their cages. The blackened room smelled of smoke and animal faeces.
Three of the 11 surviving dogs were taken into temporary care by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.
'I treated them like my daughters and sons. They've been with me for so many years ... Now that I have lost so many, my heart does not feel right,' Ms Pang said before breaking into tears.
Ms Pang had licences for most of the dogs, a department spokeswoman said. The law did not require owners to have licenses for cats or limit the number of dogs or cats a person could keep, she said.
Ms Pang fed her pets and left at 9pm on Sunday to take her friend's young  daughter back to her Tsuen Wan home, where she usually spends the night after babysitting the child.
Police informed her of the fire in the early morning.
Preliminary investigation indicated arson because  evidence at the scene suggested the fire had been started in two places, a government spokesman said.
But a police source said the locations of the two  sources of the fire were next to  electrical appliances.
'No trace of flammable solvent such as petrol  was found at the scene,' the source said.
'We don't rule out the possibility that a short circuit was the cause of the fire. So we need assistance from government chemists to conduct a thorough probe.'
The source said there had been no complaint over the house being used as a home for pets as the location was remote and no one lived nearby.
Ms Pang said she had never had any trouble with other villagers,  although she claimed that a neighbour who also had pets had stolen pet food several times. The neighbour was not present yesterday.
Villagers  said they had never met Ms Pang and did not know she kept so many pets.
'I have never heard neighbours complain. I didn't know [the fire] was such a big deal,' said Sunny Siu, owner of a garage,  the closest building to the house.
Detectives from Pat Heung police station are investigating.
A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals spokesman  said there was no sign of ill-treatment but added:  'I will suggest she not keep so many pets there.'
Ms Pang started taking in stray dogs and cats in 1995, two years after divorcing her husband. She   spent about HK$1,000 a month on pet food.
She said she intended to continue collecting dogs and cats.



31 dogs and cats die in blaze at village house