The Daily Star visit to 6 leading high-rises reveals sorry state of fire safety
Tawfique Ali and Helemul Alam
Firefighting mechanisms in most of the high-rise buildings in the city are in miserable states with inadequate equipment and poorly trained personnel rendering them completely vulnerable to battling blazes. Lack of in-house training and absence of expertise required for fighting fire contributed to the devastating Friday fire that burnt seven top floors of the Basundhara City Tower to ashes, experts said.
Some of the skyscrapers have fire fighting mechanisms including fire detector, alarm bells and hydrant box with hosepipes but they lack trained and skilled manpower to operate the system in the event of a fire.
The 15-storey Land View at Gulshan in the city bears the testimony of such inadequacy and lack of well-trained personnel in putting out the fire.
It has water reservoir, hosepipe, fire detector and alarm bells but nobody with proper expertise in operating the system.
“We do not have anyone here to operate the firefighting system,” said Mahmud Hassan, project engineer of the Land View Properties.
General Manager of NYK Line (Bangladesh) Shohail Alam in his rented office room located on the 14th floor said that a regular fire fighting drill is crucial for fire safety.
When asked about a firefighting exercise Alam said, “I think, it is not possible at this moment, as the mechanism may not be in proper condition to do that.”
The under-construction 27-storey Doreen Tower at Gulshan intersection-2 has a staircase only 3.5 feet in width with an elevator for everyday use.
“We will use the staircase as an emergency fire exit,” said Doreen’s Assistant Chief Operating Officer Mostafa Moin.
Kazi Golam Nasir, deputy chief architect of the department of architecture, however, said Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) of 1993 stipulates that a building above six-storey should have at least two staircases with one for emergency fire exit.
Fire protection act of 2003 says a building above six-storey requires prior clearance from the Fire Service and Civil Defence Department, he added.
Moin, however, said, “We will seek clearance from the Fire Brigade after completion of the building.”
With all the floors of Doreen already constructed the water reservoir required for firefighting is yet to be built.
Doreen’s Assistant Project Controller Wahiduzzaman Noman said they would set up modern fire fighting equipment in the building.
The fire safety gear installed during the construction of the twenty-storey Jiban Bima Tower at Dilkusha has already become inoperative rendering it completely vulnerable to the fire, said officials and security guards of different offices housed in the building.
The building has an emergency exit but most of the doors of different floors leading to the emergency exit remain closed round the clock. The hydrants on different floors set up during its construction have also been out of order for ages, they added.
Fire extinguishers are not available on most of the floors, they said.
The building experienced two fires — on 12th and 4th floors — within a span of eight months when hydrants could not be used, as those had long been out of order, said Md Sharif, a security guard of City Bank housed in the building.
They said they feel very unsafe, as not a single fire extinguisher is available on their floor.
The 24-storey Shilpa Bank Bhaban on the DIT Road has an emergency exit, hydrants and fire extinguishers on each floor but it lacks trained manpower to operate those.
Mofizul Islam, security officer of the building said they have five well-trained employees but the security guards of different offices of other floors are not skilled and trained.
A visit to a couple of top floors of the 15-storey Landmark building at Gulshan saw neither any hydrants nor fire detectors. The building has two staircases and some fire extinguisher cylinders were found on several floors.
Employees of an insurance company on the 15th floor and a female employee of another private company on the 13th floor said that they have no knowledge about any firefighting devices in the building.
When asked staffers at Landmark’s office advised this correspondent to meet Biswanath Gope, the manager of the office, but they declined to give his phone number under the excuse of being newcomers.
The 24-storey Eunoos Centre at Dilkusha constructed in 2005 had an emergency exit and some firefighting equipment including hydrants and Gundola (rope of wire).
During the visit no fire extinguishers were found on any of the floors of the building although different offices have extinguishers on their own.
Manager of Eunoos Centre MH Akram said they did not have extinguishers as only 30 percent floors of the building is now being used.
He said they would have a board meeting on Sunday where they would decide on setting up extinguishers, forming a special firefighting team apart from existing security guards.
We will buy some high-tech equipment, which can be operated even when power goes off, as hydrants don’t function without electricity, he added.
Director General of Fire Service and Civil Defence Abu Nayeem Md Shahidullah said as most of the owners of high-rise buildings and shopping malls of the city do not arrange for training they fail to get the mechanism launched during fire incident.
“Fire Prevention Act must be incorporated into the provision of mobile court so that it can take steps in this regard to ensure safety,” he said.
As per the act each floor should have at least two fire extinguishers, hydrants, water reservoir and a tank on the top that will always preserve a certain amount of water.
Every high-rise building and market also needs to provide training to its firefighting team by Fire Service and Civil Defence and they should continue the training by themselves each month, he suggested.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
