Beijing fire truck drives into shopping mall as part of fire drill

“Thick smoke is billowing out of the windows of a restaurant located on the second floor of No.6 Building in the Livat Shopping Mall. Two unconscious casualties are trapped. We are waving for help.”

At 9:10 am on September 1, people were practicing a fire drill in a restaurant in the Livat Shopping Mall, located in Xihongmen, Beijing.

Five minutes later, a red fire truck, nearly 3.5-meters high, drove straight into the mall. It took firefighters less than 20 minutes to douse the blaze and take the trapped people out of the building.

“Livat is the first and only shopping center in Beijing that can let a fire truck drive in,” said Yang Bo, an official from the Beijing Daxing Fire Department.

A large and open-spaced shopping mall, Livat was intentionally designed with channels for fire truck access.