Karanganyar — A fire destroyed a raw material warehouse and a grinding room at a footwear factory PT Porto that is situated on Solo–Sragen Road in Kemiri Cillage, Kebakkramat District, Karanganyar, Indonesia's Central Java on Sunday, 19 July 2026 morning as seven workers escaped the site safely and no one died or suffered injuries in the incident.
The fire started around 8:45 a.m. local time. Thick black smoke rose high into the sky above the factory. The smoke slowed traffic along the busy Solo–Sragen route.
Suranto, a 45-year-old travel driver from Jebres, Solo, saw the smoke from a distance and stopped his vehicle.
"I was coming from Surabaya and had just exited the Kebakkramat toll gate. From a distance, I saw thick smoke rising. We had to stop to watch the situation develop," Suranto said, according to a report by Liputan6.com.
Danang Kusuma Wardana, head of the fire section at the Karanganyar Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), said the blaze broke out while the factory was closed for a holiday.
He said the fire started in a building with four rooms, and flames spread through two of them: the raw material warehouse and the grinding room, which housed several machines.
"Our preliminary assumption is that it possibly came from a short circuit in the machines," Danang said.
Danang said seven employees were resting in the factory's dormitory when the fire broke out. Firefighters evacuated all seven workers immediately after smoke and flames appeared. Fire crews from across the greater Solo region responded to the scene.
A regional disaster agency water tanker, military personnel and volunteers from the HSA rescue group joined the firefighting effort. Flammable materials inside the building extended the firefighting process beyond three hours.
