Hong Kong firefighter unions slam Ip Man producer Checkley Sin over blaze remarks

Six labour unions with Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department have denounced banker turned film producer Checkley Sin Kwok-lam for comments about its chief’s handling of the Tai Po fire.

The unions banded together on Thursday to slam Sin’s comments about the department’s strategies for battling the city’s deadliest fire in decades. The blaze raged for about 43 hours, killing 161 people and displacing nearly 5,000 residents.

Sin, a former banker who went on to produce the award-winning kung fu film series Ip Man, took to social media on Monday to claim that several friends in the department had given him internal messages that accused Director of Fire Services Andy Yeung Yan-kin of mismanaging the blaze.

In a statement, the unions said the accusations were misleading and had damaged the department’s professional image.

Sin shared the internal messages without identifying their source.

The unions argued that the department deployed drones to detect and monitor the fire at the scene, but could not use them to snuff out the fire due to limited water pressure.