Well, almost everywhere! Over the last couple of months, fire is breaking out in different parts of Dhaka city, in residential areas, industrial complexes or in slums. Fire has been a recurring news in recent weeks. Fire erupted in slums in Rayerbazar and in Tejgaon Colony last week and at the time I am writing this piece, I just got to know that at least five people, including a woman, were killed in a fire which might have originated from a boiler explosion at a factory in Gazipur. Two of them were so badly burnt that their bodies could not even be identified immediately. Such incidents are becoming an almost every day occurrence and industrial fires, specifically fires in garment factories, top the list.Frequent fire breakouts in Dhaka: Where are we going wrong?
The most crucial aspect of a buildings safety in the face of fire is the possibility of safe escape
Shadman Sahir Ahmed
Well, almost everywhere! Over the last couple of months, fire is breaking out in different parts of Dhaka city, in residential areas, industrial complexes or in slums. Fire has been a recurring news in recent weeks. Fire erupted in slums in Rayerbazar and in Tejgaon Colony last week and at the time I am writing this piece, I just got to know that at least five people, including a woman, were killed in a fire which might have originated from a boiler explosion at a factory in Gazipur. Two of them were so badly burnt that their bodies could not even be identified immediately. Such incidents are becoming an almost every day occurrence and industrial fires, specifically fires in garment factories, top the list.
The most crucial aspect of a buildings safety in the face of fire is the possibility of safe escape. An important prerequisite is that its fire safety facilities allow independent and adequate fire response by the buildings occupants. Oftentimes, the building fire exits are non-existent or is inadequate. It appears that the measures currently required by law do not always provide the support that people in burning buildings need. Or even if there are rules and regulations, the owners of such factories, simply could not care less about those. For reference, lets take the example of the burning down of Tazreen Fashions, which is by far the deadliest such accident till date. The fire in this garment factory in Ashulia in 2012 claimed the life of 112 and injured more than 250 workers. Various reports from that time state that on the night of the fire, more than 1,150 people were inside the eight-story building, working overtime shifts to fill orders for various international brands. Fire officials say the fire broke out in the open-air ground floor, where large stacks of fabric and yarn were illegally kept despite the fact that Bangladeshi law requires such flammable materials be stored in a room with fireproof walls.
The blaze quickly spread across the length of that floor roughly the equivalent of a football field as fire and toxic smoke filtered up through the buildings three staircases. The factory lacked any sort of sprinkler system or even an outdoor fire escape.
Consequently, understanding how individuals behave in the case of fire and fire evacuation is essential if we are to bring fire safety measures into line with residents needs during an incident. Although these are very basic requirements for any standard industrial or commercial building anywhere in the world, for our factory-owners, providing this bit of safety provisions probably seemed like doing more than their workers deserved. We all know that garment owners are in the business of making money and certain fancy safety measures can increase their overheads, but not having fire extinguishers and a simple secondary staircase as an emergency escape route for the labor force, who bring them the millions, really calls for factory owners accountability towards their workers.
Although the factory owners carry the bulk of the responsibility for the casualties caused from fire, the formal institutional rescue teams have not been of much help either. Members of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, the official rescue agencies in Bangladesh, fear that they themselves may get trapped under the debris of their own office building, if it catches fire! Such a feeling itself shows the sorry state of the agencies. On papers, the Fire Service is a 8,000-strong force under the Home Ministry. But when put against the nearly 170 million people of the country, the low ratio speaks for itself. For Dhaka, which is said to have a population of over 15 million, there are only 600 rescuers. The ratio here is one rescuer for every 25,000 people. For one of the most unplanned and densely populated cities in the world, such a figure is ominous and absolutely unacceptable.
One of the key pieces of rescue machinery is the rescue van a big truck packed with all sorts of essential tools such as lighting units, cranes, fork lifts, crow bars, multipurpose saw, electric chainsaw, power cutter, stretcher, manila rope, etc.
Alarmingly, the force has just four such vans to cover the entire Dhaka division the capital city and rest of Dhaka district and 11 others. So, the ratio in this case is just four rescue vans for around 25 million people. What makes it even worse is that these rescue vans are often rendered useless even during regular fire mishaps, as they are too big for the narrow roads and streets of Dhaka. Hence, this lack of manpower and equipment combined with the inability to even use the resources at hand, are the prime reasons that our fire response is usually so ineffective. Going back to the example of Tazreen Fashion, one report on that catastrophe pointed out that the rescue equipment were not able to reach the site because the connecting roads were not wide enough. If the firefighters got there in time, the number of casualties could have been much lower. This leads to one simple question: why are the authorities importing trucks which cannot even be accommodated in our typically narrow roads? Since 2006, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers died in factory fires, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group from Amsterdam. These hard-working laborers, who are steering the economic engine of the country, deserve much, much better than this.
Some internal improvements are simple, such as keeping aisles between sewing machines clear or moving large stacks of fabric to prevent congesting the floors, which automatically reduces the risk of accidental fires. Other fixes might be a little more complicated and/or expensive, for example, having a water reservoir and fire hose ready at all times or replacing regular doors with metal fire doors. According to various investigative reports, seventy percent of factory fires originate from electrical causes, and its obvious why - because the electrical systems are not checked regularly. Hence, fixing and correctly maintaining even something like electrical wiring, has a big impact. However, the most widely used and effective measure is to have sprinklers and a comprehensive fire alarm system, by following the global standards for industrial safety. Most of such improvements are relatively simple and can make factories dramatically safer.
Although, some of these concepts might sound new to the management personnel of these factories, it is high time they rise to the occasion and adapt with rest of the world and ensure the safety and security of their employees.
The writer is a freelancer
