From Kamala Mills To Karol Bagh Hotel, Now Surat Show How We Have Failed To Stop Fire Incidents

Cries of people struggling with flames inside tall buildings, sirens of fire brigades and ambulances and a large cloud of smoke in the sky, these scenes are seen far too often in Indian cities. Yes, it seems that there's no step taken to stop fire incidents. Why is it happening so frequently? People are dying, do we not learn from previous incidents? Are our fire fighters not equipped to tackle the emergency situations? Do we leave it to the chance and not take necessary measures to avoid any further incident? Or, perhaps, have we become immune to the number of deaths that are reported after every incident?

Be it in the Kamala Mills fire in December 2017 the Calcutta Medical College fire in October 2018, the Karol Bagh Hotel fire in January 2019 and the recent incident in Surat, all have one thing in common - they were caused or made worse by human neglect.

BCCL

Repeated fire incidents have shown how little we know about or care about having proper fire rescue mechanisms at commercial buildings. Another revelation from the recent spate of accidents is how easily the mandatory fire safety norms can be violated or overlooked. Be it in the 1 Above and Mojo's Bistro pubs in Kamala Mills or the Hotel Arpit Palace in Karol Bagh that went up in the blaze earlier this year one thing was clear - how the those in charge of the building overlooked the norms.

BCCL

In the case of Kamala Mills, the fire started from Hookah which was served illegally at the rooftop of Mojo¡¯s Bistro. Fire from the hookah spread rapidly trapping dozens of party goers. What made the situation even worse is how at both 1 Above and Mojo¡¯s Bistro emergency exits were blocked by beer kegs near the exit path. And the kegs eventually exploded and escalated the fire. Use of bamboo and cloth to make the roof led to the quick spreading of the fire, while wind velocity and direction were the major contributors too.

BCCL

There was blatant flouting of the rules at Hotel Arpit Palace in Karol Bhag too, where 17 people were charred to death in the fire that broke out in the dead of the night. The hotel did have an NoC but when it came to reality it was terribly ill-equipped. The fire safety system was non-functional and fire alarm non-existent. Additionally the temporary floor was illegally used as an open-air restaurant and the terrace was covered with inflammable material that led to the flames spreading like wildfire.

Such glaring lapses are visible in the case of the fire at the coaching centre in Surat where tyres were used in place of chairs. The fire spread very quickly because highly inflammable materials, such as flex, were used. The ceiling of the coaching institute was just five feet high. Since one cannot sit on a chair in such a room, the owner used tyres instead to seat students.

AFP

While there is a crackdown from the part of the authorities right now it is going to be business as usual once the uproar over the incident subsides. The entire exercises of raids, examination and penalizing violators will once again resume with the next blaze, which unfortunate will happen.