T

hree cars parked at gas filling station (SPBU) 34-12902 on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta, caught fire on Tuesday, causing panic among SPBU employees and customers.

SPBU employee Arif said that the fire broke out at around 1:50 p.m., when the gas station was busy converting its operation from subsidized gasoline Premium into the newly launched fuel Pertalite. At that time, according to him, fire initially blazed out from two containers of fuel at the fourth gas dispenser.

The containers, which were on a cart, were going to be used for distribution, Arif added.

'€œI don'€™t know why the fire suddenly appeared,'€ said Arif, adding that he and some other employees then took the trolley and containers away to the parking lot to prevent the flames from burning up the fuel dispenser.

Moreover, a fuel truck was at the same time distributing 32,000 Pertalite to the gasoline station, said Arif. The wind blew the flame to the cars, which were parked about 3 meters away when the employees were trying to put out the fire with 10 portable fire extinguishers.

Two cars were severely destroyed. Meanwhile, the third one suffered minor damage.

Arif also added that the fire was extinguished half an hour later after two fire trucks from the South Jakarta Fire and Disaster Management Agency worked on the fire. No fatalities were reported.

SPBU official Arnold Taher said that his company was currently considering paying out some amount of money to the owners of the damaged cars.

Setiabudi Police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Tri Yulianto, confirming the fire, said that the police were currently carrying out an investigation to ascertain whether the incident was caused by negligence.

Due to the investigation, the SPBU would be closed for some time, according to SPBU security officer Suyono. '€œWe will be closed for a while,'€ Suyono said.

Also on Tuesday, a fire engulfed a Transjakarta bus pool in Rawa Buaya, West Jakarta. The Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) reported via its Twitter account that 30 fire trucks had been deployed to extinguish the fire.

By 7:45 p.m., the fire had been put out and it had already burned 18 Transjakarta buses, the BPBD reported.

The fire at SPBU 34-12902 was the third incident involving fire at an SPBU this year in Indonesia.

In June, two SPBUs in Magetan, East Java, and Kelapa Dua, Depok, West Java, caught fire. The fire in Magetan was reported to have blazed up after a motorist accidentally drove his car while refilling '€” breaking the fuel dispenser and igniting the leaked fuel.

Meanwhile, the Kelapa Dua SPBU was engulfed with fire due to a short circuit at one of the fuel dispensers.

No casualties were reported in the accidents, but four dispensers, one car and one truck were damaged at the Magetan SPBU.