26th October 2026 – (Hong Kong) A No 3 alarm fire at the Shek Kwu Chau waste-to-energy works left a 60-year-old plant employee airlifted to hospital after he felt unwell while trying to fight the flames, as about 930 workers cleared the artificial island.
The blaze began as a No 2 alarm at 12.43pm at the I·PARK1 site and was raised to No 3 at 1.24pm. Firefighters deployed three hose lines and two breathing-apparatus teams, with several ambulances standing by. According to understanding of the case, a 60-year-old male staff member who tried to tackle the fire appeared to overheat and felt unwell but remained conscious. A Government Flying Service helicopter reached the island and winched him to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital for treatment. The fire was surrounded at 3.47pm.
About 930 workers on the island evacuated themselves when the incident broke. The contractor laid on several boats and had already landed more than 800 of them at Cheung Chau and at Tsuen Wan public pier. By about 3.45pm more than 100 people were still waiting on Shek Kwu Chau to board.
A worker said that at midday more than 100 staff were on duty when they suddenly heard an explosion, after which fire and smoke broke out and the alarm sounded. Managers moved people to safe ground; he called the withdrawal calm and orderly. The site was to suspend work for the day. He placed the seat of the fire in a 19-storey plant building packed with machinery, whose ground floor normally sees heavy foot traffic. A photograph circulating among workers showed fierce flames and fire tongues at what looked like a lift-cage doorway, though it could not be confirmed as the origin. Other images showed thick smoke sweeping high over the island.
I·PARK1 was built at a cost of about HK$18 billion to burn municipal solid waste and generate electricity from the heat. It occupies roughly 12 hectares on an artificial island southwest of Shek Kwu Chau and has three incineration modules. The first began trial operation in December last year; the other two were due to enter system testing and trial runs from the first quarter of this year. When fully operational the plant is expected to treat about 3,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste a day and send roughly 480 million kilowatt-hours a year into the public grid — enough for about 100,000 households annually.
From the midday bang to the mid-afternoon surround, the island’s unfinished commissioning day became a marine mass exit and a medical hoist. With the heat-stricken staffer under care at Eastern Hospital, hundreds already ashore at Cheung Chau and Tsuen Wan, and the last boats still loading, investigators will next have to establish what ignited inside the 19-storey plant — and how a worker’s attempt to save it left him needing the sky for a way out.