Welcome to one of the last remnants of Hong Kong’s old airport, a degenerated fire station situated where the edge of the old runway used to be. An inferno destroyed the structure a few years after the airstrip closed. A fire station destroyed by fire – it doesn’t get much more ironic than that.
With most of the surrounding area left abandoned and empty after the airport’s closure, the fire raged on for quite some time and completely gutted the barren building. The concrete skeleton that remains resembles a deformed art exhibit, sculpted and shaped by the immense heat that tore through it. The strength of the flames caused the glass windows to explode, and the heat was so strong it melted metal around the building.
A metallic canopy that used to shelter the central courtyard where the fire engines were kept today lies collapsed on the ground, like a warped carcass frozen in a state of structural rigor mortis. The courtyard would have functioned as the engine hall when the site was in operation, but all the partitions have long dissipated and the crumpled ruined oxidized roof is all that remains.
Two blackened concrete blocks edge the courtyard, making up the rest of the compound and a graffitied vehicle bay lies nearby. The metal and concrete wreckage smells like blood and the air is infused with the odour of rot and rust. The charred structural corpse is one of the few relics of the old airport that remains – but it won’t be around for long.
