Firefighting teams from three areas contained a blaze at the Naayem Scrapyard on Salmi Road on Friday, with no injuries or casualties reported, according to an Arab Times article published June 19, 2026. The Kuwait Fire Force prevented the flames from spreading through the site filled with combustible scrap materials while officials confirmed full control was achieved after intensive work although the cause has not been determined and remains under investigation.
The Arab Times reported that crews responded promptly to the alert in the Al-Salmi area and focused efforts on isolating the fire to limit its reach across the yard. Officials at the scene verified that the operation concluded without any need for medical intervention or additional resources beyond the initial deployment. No estimates of material damage were released in the immediate aftermath and the site was secured for follow-up examination by specialists. Investigations typically seek to pinpoint ignition factors in such settings according to standard procedures followed by the force.
Similar events have recurred in Kuwait’s scrapyard facilities in recent years. Kuwait Times reported that a July 2025 fire at a wood scrap yard in Amghara spread across 70,000 square meters and required the efforts of around 180 firefighters to bring under control with no injuries recorded. That incident marked the second in the Amghara vicinity within weeks after an earlier blaze involving trucks and waste at another scrap site in the same zone. The pattern has led to repeated responses by the Kuwait Fire Force in industrial desert areas.
KUNA stated in a May 2025 announcement that the Kuwait Fire Force had extinguished a previous fire at the Al-Naayem scrapyard in the Al-Salmi area with no injuries reported. These repeated occurrences have coincided with heightened enforcement of safety rules at storage and recycling locations. Each case prompts a dedicated probe by authorities to assess compliance and identify preventable factors.
A Civil Defence manual for industrial safety issued by the Ministry of Interior identifies key triggers for fires at such sites. The document states that cigarettes cause 25 percent of all fires while failure to place oil-polluted materials in closed metal containers before disposal ranks among the most common oversights. It also notes that lack of training on early use of fire extinguishers allows small incidents to escalate rapidly in environments with mixed flammable contents. The manual stresses catching outbreaks at the initial stage to simplify containment.
Scrap materials commonly found in these yards including tires oils and metals can accelerate fire spread once ignited according to sector safety reviews. A 2009 KUNA report attributed the majority of scrapyard fires to unmet regulatory standards for handling storage and permitting. The Kuwait Fire Force has carried out inspections across industrial zones to verify adherence and has warned operators against practices that heighten risks such as improper clustering of combustible items.
