Not only did they get there in 35 secs, but they "confined the fire to the cargo hold."
Leaving aside the obvious photo evidence that the fire did at the very least put a large hole in the top of the fuselage, the wording above seems to imply pretty strongly that the cargo hold is where the fire started.
My systems knowledge ain't 100% what it probably should be, but I'm pretty sure there are no fuel lines inside the MD11 cargo hold that could rupture (I believe the connectors between the L/R halves of #2 tank pass through the aux tank area, but not certain). Going the other way, however, if a fire was burning in the Center Compartment and was only being surpressed (ie. Li batteries) and somehow broke through the bulkhead into the Center Gear area all 3 hydraulic systems would be in jeopardy. And a fire in the Forward Compartment that burned into the CAC would have some very unpleasant effects on electrics, automation and flight controls. Not saying either of these scenarios happened - I personally suspect an onboard fire leading the crew to just get it on the ground regardless, but I'm no investigator and I do not actually know what happened, so...
I'll wait for official results, but I'm not about to join in the howling chorus for grounding the 11 (which if one actually studies it had an awesome safety record from 2000 to 2008, and over its life a total of catastrophic three hull losses which might be attributable to the design itself - more likely two considering Mandarin landed in a tropical storm in a far-from-stable approach...). But I'll hop off my soapbox and let those of you who prefer to rant without facts take over...
Q