Spicy Rendang

Credit by nowdots

This was clearly an intentional act!

Translation: A total of 28 traditional houses in Kampung Waru Wora, West Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), were destroyed by a massive fire on Friday afternoon (December 5, 2025). The blaze completely burned down 26 houses, while two others were partially damaged, leaving 139 residents homeless, although no casualties were reported.

The fire was first spotted at the back of a resident’s house. Despite residents’ efforts to extinguish the flames manually, strong winds and highly flammable building materials caused the fire to spread rapidly to neighboring houses located close to one another.

Kampung Waru Wora is known as an important cultural heritage site, featuring traditional tower-shaped houses with thatched roofs made of alang-alang grass. Joint emergency teams and local residents worked together to put out the fire using three water tanker trucks, and the blaze was finally brought under control at around 5:45 p.m. WITA.

Police stated that they are still investigating the exact cause of the fire, while cooling-down efforts continued into the night to prevent the flames from reigniting.