Ten people were injured in the Cairo studio blaze, which burned for four hours and damaged nearby apartment buildings
A spate of fires across several Egyptian provinces over the past week has created alarm among the population.
Egyptian government statements say the blazes were largely caused by electrical short circuits. This is a common cause of fires in Egypt where unregulated construction results in badly wired homes.
The largest blaze happened at dawn on Saturday in Cairo at Al Ahram Studio, one of the country’s most important film locations.
Ten people were injured, according to a report by Giza’s municipal prosecutors, including two firefighters who were climbing a crane to put out the flames when it collapsed.
The fire, which burned for more than four hours, destroyed the historic studio, which opened in 1944.
Witnesses say the blaze damaged sets from popular Egyptian films and television series which had been stored there, and caused significant damage to 10 neighbouring apartment buildings.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, despite Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announcing the launch of investigations after he visited the site on Saturday.
Speaking from the scene, Mr Madbouly said he would give 15,000 Egyptian pounds ($319) to each person whose home was damaged by the fire.
“The fire erupted from multiple sides of the studio and burned every building inside. I watched it spread from my balcony. Within minutes, the whole neighbourhood was in chaos and people were running and screaming,” said Hassan Abdou, 38, who lives in Al Omraneya, the densely populated Cairo neighbourhood where the studio is located.
“Pretty soon it had spread to building after building and the firemen were finding it difficult to put it out. We could hear the screams and the commotion well into the late morning.”
The Al Ahram Studio fire is one of many to have broken out across the country recently.
They began last Tuesday with a blaze on the banks of the Nile near the Cairo district of Maadi. The fire was caused by a passer-by throwing a burning cigarette butt into a garden, according to a statement from Cairo’s municipal government on Thursday. No injuries were reported.
On Sunday, the day after the Al Ahram Studio fire, a similar-sized blaze broke out at a shopping centre in the affluent district of New Cairo.
It started on the fourth storey of the mall, inside a restaurant which was almost entirely consumed by the flames, a police official told media.
The cause, according to a police investigation, was an electrical short circuit inside the restaurant.
The fire also damaged banks located in the mall, according to the police report.
Also on Sunday, a large fire was put out at a wood factory in Beni Suef province, about 150km south of Cairo. The cause is still being determined, according a statement from the Beni Suef municipality.
On Monday, one person was injured when a set caught fire in the Egyptian Media Production City, a complex near Cairo that houses some of the country’s largest television and radio studios.
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