A two-storey villa in Tibubeneng burned down along with everything inside after a guest set fire to paper in the bathroom to drive out spiders.
The villa had an alang-alang thatch roof, and the dry grass caught fire within minutes. No one was injured, and police put the damage at around 2 billion rupiah.
The fire broke out on Monday, 5 October, at around half past twelve in the afternoon on Aseman Bagus Street. Gaorap Rana, a forty-five-year-old Nepalese national who was staying at the villa, lit a scrap of paper in the bathroom of the southern bungalow, saying that a lot of spiders had gathered there. He left the fire smouldering, stepped out and went to the work room.
A strong wind picked up the burning paper and carried it onto the roof. The flames then spread to the neighbouring buildings in the complex. Neighbours who saw the fire called the fire service and panicked: the day was hot with a strong wind, and people were afraid the fire would reach their own houses.
Seven trucks from four stations came to the villa, spent about two hours putting out the fire and used roughly 60 thousand litres of water. About 13 ares of land were burned. The firefighters were helped by police, the local community security unit, power company crews and resident volunteers.
The two-storey villa building burned down together with its furnishings. Police did not say who owns the property or whether it was being rented out.
The police press officer put it bluntly: the fire spread so quickly because the roof was made of dry alang-alang and a strong wind was blowing that day. A few days before this fire, the authorities began discussing what to do about thatch roofs — revising safety rules for tourist properties, but without banning the material itself.
This is not the first fire in Tibubeneng. In August, at Perancak Beach, which belongs to the same village, ten bars burned down overnight: the buildings stood right next to one another, were made of wood and bamboo, and the wind off the ocean fanned the flames within minutes.
The same thing keeps happening beyond the island as well. In March, on Gili Trawangan, a fire damaged six tourist businesses along the shoreline — there, too, there is plenty of wood and plenty of roofs made of dry natural material.
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