At least two persons have been injured in a fire at a fuel warehouse in Arakan State’s Minbya Township on Friday morning as firefighters continue efforts to suppress the blaze.

A fire department official in Minbya told DVB at around noon on Friday that the fire was still burning strong.

“We are currently on the way to the scene–the cause of the blaze is not yet confirmed, but we have been told it started from fuel containers and is quite heavy,” said the official.

He said it was the same site where a huge blaze erupted last year.

A Minbya resident named Nyi Nyi Aung said two people were hospitalised with serious burns.

In separate incidents, fires broke out in two villages in Maungdaw District in northwestern Arakan State just after midnight last night, according to local sources.

A local in Maungdaw told DVB that a fire was first reported in the village of Bakon, about three miles south of Maungdaw town, at around 1am, then in nearby Narula village about an hour later.

“The fire in Bakon was quickly suppressed. But then another fire broke out in Narula – I think in the centre of the village,” said Tun Thein, a resident from neighbouring Khayemyaing village.

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In early November, armed men attacked a police outpost in Narula, killing a police sergeant and another police personnel injured.

Meanwhile, Burmese state media has reported that 13 individuals suspected of involvement in the attack on Kyikanpyin border police outpost in Maungdaw on 9 October were detained by security forces on Thursday.

The attack triggered a spate of violent incidents in the restive western Burmese region, where inter-religious tensions between Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims threaten to boil over.

There are no official indications that any of the fires that took place last night were related to inter-religious tensions.