A fire has torn through a tourist complex in the popular holiday destination of Seminyak in Bali, destroying up to 16 villas and houses.
The blaze, which erupted at around 10.30pm (local time) on Thursday evening, impacted a number of Australian holidaymakers, some of whom lost all of their belongings.
A group of Aussies had been out for dinner, returning to find their accommodation in flames.
“As we were getting close we realised our villa was on fire,” a Western Australian man called Bailey told Perth’s 6PR, saying he and his friends had lost everything – except his passport, which he had fortunately been carrying.
“I lost everything apart from my passport and cash, a couple of them lost passports and a couple have lost everything,” he added.
“We are going to head to the embassy and get passports for the others and find some new accommodation.”
The fire occurred during Bali’s peak holiday period. Two weeks ago, one of Australia’s largest online travel agents reported that flight bookings to the Indonesian province for July and August were nearly twice as high (95 per cent up) as in September and October and up by almost 50 per cent year-on-year.
According to The West Australian, social media videos show the fire engulfing the Seminyak homes just metres away from a busy tourist strip as fire trucks and emergency vehicles hurtle past.
Holidaymakers and locals can be seen running away from the inferno.
“Looked out the window to see an eerie orange glow. Only time to grab handbags, passports, phones and wallets,” West Australian Rod Blitvich said on social media.
“Unfortunately the wind was carrying embers which ignited other buildings. At one stage I counted nine fire engines.”
The Aussie, who had been staying at a villa in Seminyak, didn’t return to his abode until around 1am, but salvaged around half of his possessions, the WA reported.
Blitvich added, “The place is covered in back soot and ash, but fortunately our villa did not burn except for the pool umbrella”.
“Several buildings behind us were destroyed along with 2 alongside us. All these were just metres from ours.”
Last week, it was revealed that Indonesia may be about to sweeten the deal for Australians considering a holiday to Bali by finally doing away with its Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) fees for Aussie travellers.
