Unusual Evacuation: Ministry of Home Affairs Employees Cross via Rooftop During Fire

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Over a dozen employees at Building D of the Directorate General for Village Governance, Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri), were forced to evacuate via the rooftop walkway to the adjacent building when a fire broke out on Monday (20/4/2026).

One employee, Agus (not his real name), nearly had to join that evacuation.

Agus recounted that during the incident, he was working on his laptop after lunch.

He immediately secured his laptop and personal belongings.

At that point, the flames began spreading to the emergency staircase area. Without thinking twice, Agus chose to descend to the ground floor.

“That was the first floor, but when I got there, it was all smoke, pitch black,” he said when met at the location on Monday.

From outside the building, they saw over a dozen other employees exiting through windows and moving to Building E next door.

Those employees jumped onto the rooftop walkway connecting the two buildings, then descended using a ladder propped against Building E.

“If I’d been five minutes later, I might have had to go that way too. Because the fire was already big,” said Agus.

He had seen a colleague on the third floor calling for help. Other employees then shouted instructions for their colleague to evacuate via the rooftop walkway.

The fire was reported in Building D, located at the rear of the office complex. The flames were first visible around 1:30 PM WIB.

Head of the Ministry of Home Affairs Information Centre, Beni Irawan, stated that the fire was suspected to have originated from a pile of discarded items near the clinic.