Took about 30 minutes for emergency people to show up.

The unit that started is cooking, I'm about 100 yards away 22 stories up, front row seat. This is nuts.

live updates as the story unfold pls.

Looks like the rain is coming in faster than the fire brigade did

Out yet ??

Don't they have all them pools on the balcony ??....no shortage of water.

Seems to be mostly out now. I'm pretty sure the apartment above got hit pretty hard, though there were no visible flames in that one. I'm sure the smoke damage alone is total tear down though.

The crane/cherry picker they brought in was pretty cool though. I'll try to put some pics up, I took a lot.

This is the only news that has come in so far - posted earlier

Follow this link:

I think that it was out pretty dam quick. In fact the smoke must have lasted not much longer than 15 minutes.

I heard people panicking and told to go to the roof and wait for a copter despite only one side of the building having a fire. Don't they have fire exits on each side?

Should be no need to go to the roof in this case. That's reallly a last resort as it get's even riskier once "trapped" on the roof if the fire is out of control. I wouldn't like to rely on a compter arriving promptly in Bangkok and too much smoke or bad weather stops them from rescuing. They have an uncanny history of crashing regardless of who's on board.

actually this was burning for 2.5 straight hours. No one went to the roof. I did see 3 small children loaded into an ambulance about 45 minutes into the fire. There were no helicopters for at lest 1 hour. The building was evacuate by then for 30 minutes.

I work on Soi 26 and could see the fire from my office.

Dont know where you got the idea that the flames only lasted 15 mins from. We noticed smoke and flames at about 2.15-ish.

The cherry picker/crane device the fire bobbies used didn't get used until around 4-4.30, by which time there were some already on the balcony with hoses. There were still quite big flames going at this point.

At one point they were on a building to the right trying to aim a hose up and across, but it was missing by quite a way. Don't know who thought that was going to work.

We were surprised that the flames didn't spread to some of the other condos (unless they did and were out of view), but as harveyBKK said there will be extensive smoke damage to other condos, let alone any structural damage caused by the heat.

It's been a few years since I walked up Soi 24 but I recall a reasonable size fire station there at some point. Guess its gone now as they should have been able to repsond pretty quick.

I think the Fire Station you are referring to is on Soi 22, it is still there.

It's been a few years since I walked up Soi 24 but I recall a reasonable size fire station there at some point. Guess its gone now as they should have been able to repsond pretty quick.

Is there a way through from 22 to 24?

^

Soi Setthi