A fire was put out quickly at a wastewater treatment facility at Ramathibodi Hospital without injury on Saturday morning. Officials suspect a short-circuit in an unused electric fan caused the incident.
Local residents were first alerted when they saw white smoke billowing from the rooftop of the four-storey wastewater treatment building at the public hospital on Rama VI Road in Ratchathewi district at about 10.30am.
Two fire engines were dispatched to the scene and firefighters extinguished the blaze on the ground floor of the building in about 10 minutes.
Assoc Prof Dr Surasak Leela-Udomlipi, director of the hospital, said later that an old electric fan had caught fire, possibly due to a short-circuit. Although the fan had been unused for nine years, the electricity might not have been disconnected from it, he said.
A handful of staff members were evacuated from the wastewater treatment building and there was no impact on public services and patients at the hospital, he said.