Capt Sunan Phetnu of the Phuket City Police, who received a call regarding a fire at a mattress facility on Soi Phuyai in Rassada at 4:45am, said, “The fire happened on the ground floor of the facility. There was lot of smoke and flames and the ground floor of the building was badly damaged. It was hard to see anything.
“There were eight fire engines and 20 firefighters from Phuket Municipality and the Koh Keaw fire department attended the scene, but it was hard for the firefighters to get inside to control the fire because of all the burning material.
“It took the firefighters until 9am to put out the blaze,” Capt Sunan said.
“Once the fire was out and we could get inside, I found the bodies of two pitbulls named ‘Bom’ and ‘Bem’. One was 3 years old the other was 7 years old. The dog’s owner has buried them already.
“After investigating we found that the owner of this facility is Eakkasit Ampaipon, 38, of the 322 Trading Group.
“We believe the estimated damaged is in the region of B7-8 million. However, I can’t be sure until I inspect the scene again,” he added.
When asked about the second floor of the property, Capt Sunan said, “The second floor was living quarters for the facility’s 12 staff. They are safe, nobody was injured in the fire. They escaped from the back of building.”