Accidental fires have become commonplace in the city, often fatal, as witnessed from three massive fire mishaps in less than a year’s time.
Twelve persons, all hapless migrant labourers, met with their horrific death when fire broke out in a scrap godown at Bhoiguda area of Secunderabad in March last year.
Even before the incident could fade from public memory, eight more persons choked to death in another fire that broke out in the basement of a building in Secunderabad. The most recent instance of fire in a building on Minister Road, where even the skeletal remains of two victims could not be traced, has raised serious concerns about fire safety in the city.
If nothing else, the three incidents should be a lesson for the civic authorities that snoozing is no longer an option amid the multi-directional and vertiginous explosion of the metropolis.
At a time when every concrete structure enclosing electric circuits, and inflammable material should be essentially looked upon as a potential fire hazard, there is utter disregard for even minimal fire safety precautions such as availability of water connection to firefighting appliances.
Instances of illegal structures, residential buildings used as storage for inflammable material, commercial establishments being run illegally in residential buildings, and multi-storey commercial complexes without firefighting appliances, are a dime a dozen in every nook of the city. The irregularities come into focus only when mishaps such as these take place.
A common thread running through all the aforementioned incidents is the structural illegalities found in the buildings where fire broke out. All the three structures had illegal appendages, and two of them circumvented fire safety norms mandatory for the buildings that size. Despite the glaring violations, civic authorities had not taken any action till it was too late.
The high level meeting convened by Minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao, along with his cabinet colleagues Mohammed Mahmood Ali, and Talasani Srinivas Yadav, on Wednesday has resolved to conduct fire safety audit of the high-rises and huge structures in Hyderabad and other cities, including commercial buildings, hospitals and schools. It has also been proposed to change the existing fire safety rules if required, to bring all the non-residential structures, irrespective of height, within the ambit of Fire Service Act.
Use of drones and robotics technology in maintaining fire safety of tall structures, study of best practices adopted by other cities in and out of the country, training classes for existing fire staff, modern equipment and resources to the Fire Services, and involving building owners in maintaining fire safety are a few more proposals that evolved from the meeting, besides the decision to pay ₹5 lakh ex-gratia to the kin of each of the three victims of the fire accident.
While a long-winding bureaucratic process has to be completed for the proposals to take any concrete shape, there is a lot to be expected in terms of enforcement and policy execution in order to prevent future mishaps.
An officer unwilling to be quoted points out that even where the buildings are equipped with the required firefighting appliances, no audit is conducted to check if they are functional. Even government buildings equipped to the hilt could be blindsided by a fire mishap, because no fire drill nor audit is conducted to ensure that the extinguishers are in working condition and connected to a water source, and the chemicals are replenished.
“The best practice under the given circumstances is to ask all the commercial establishments to submit annual fire certification. They may engage external agencies to conduct the fire audit, and get a certificate from them. To facilitate such process, the government may empanel the agencies with expertise in fire audits and supply of material. In case of failure of equipment, the agency which certified it should be brought to book,” suggests the official.
Secretary of the Forum for Good Governance M.Padmanabha Reddy opines that enforcement of fire safety norms has scope for great improvement.
“Inspections are occasionally conducted only in establishments such as hotels and hospitals. When there were reports about a fire accident at a coaching centre in Surat, some noise was made shutting down the coaching centres here for lack of fire safety norms. What happened later? Where is the follow-up action? All commercial buildings should be inspected periodically for fire safety,” he says.
Fire personnel should also be imparted training to deal with various kinds of fires, he feels. “In the recent fire accident, water jets did not have any effect, as there were chemicals involved in spreading the fire. One needs to understand the source of the flames and use water, chemicals or foam accordingly. There should be proper training for the personnel,” Mr. Reddy says.
