A 44-year-old woman of Vietnamese origin was arrested for suspected arson in Kowloon’s Sham Shui Po on Monday.
At 8:46am, police received reports that a fire had broken out in plywood squatter huts beneath an elevated highway on Tung Chau Street in Sham Shui Po, Apple Daily Daily reported.
Firemen arrived to find six shacks on fire. Police officers evacuated people who lived in nearby shacks to an open area.
Firemen put out the blaze in ten minutes, but not before the area affected had been gutted. There were no reports of injuries.
Police received information from a domestic worker who said she had witnessed a woman placing a stack of clothes near the shacks before using a lighter to set them on fire.
The domestic worker tried to stop her but failed before the fire broke out.
Officers searched the area and intercepted a barefoot Vietnamese woman who held a Hong Kong identity card, and who was found to be carrying a lighter. As the officers also found a handbag which belonged to someone else, the woman was arrested for alleged arson and theft, Oriental Daily reported.
The crime investigation unit from Sham Shui Po Police Station is following up the case.