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Fire Safety a pressing need for safe workplace

M Mahmudur Rashid
08 Apr 2023 14:52:09 | Update: 08 Apr 2023 14:54:04
Fire Safety a pressing need for safe workplace
M Mahmudur Rashid — Courtesy Photo

The garments industry of Bangladesh is very safe in terms of Fire Safety. The rest of Bangladesh lags far behind the concerted efforts to secure the ready-made garment industry despite lengthy discussions after each fire.

Yes, we have Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) and other rules, but are those sufficient and timely? According to the BNBC, if the fire safety equipment was installed in Bangabazar, would Bangabazar be safe? We have to think about the answer to this question.

The category of Bangabazar shopping complex falls under ‘F Type Occupancy’, ‘Mercantile Type 1’, and ‘Sub Category F2 Type’ in Commercial Group as per Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC).

This occupancy is coded as any building or any part, divided or undivided in an area, exceeding 300 square metres where merchandise is displayed and sold, whether wholesale or otherwise.

With or without retail, ancillary storage and service facilities, those occupancies will fall between large stores and markets. In this ‘Mercantile Type 1’ area there is a rule to install portable fire extinguishers or fire hydrants with manual call points for firefighting arrangements.

But sadly, this rule is not at all appropriate for this place and is also inadequate in terms of safety. It has been said about the manual call point, when a building catches fire in the middle of the night, if no one is there, who will operate the manual call point?

Secondly, it is said to install portable fire extinguishers or fire hydrants. That is, one of the two must be done, but there is no comparison between these two! Installing a hydrant will cost a hundred times more than the amount of money it will cost to install only a fire extinguisher.

So, will people install fire hydrants? Where according to the rules, keeping only portable fire extinguishers is sufficient!

Our building code has inconsistencies not only for markets but also for all other types of buildings. If they are not reformed soon, we will fall further behind.

Another issue is that automatic fire extinguishing systems, like Fire Sprinklers or Fire Suppression Systems, are not mandatory as per our BNBC. But think about when there is a fire, if there are no people there, then what is the use of fire extinguishers or manual fire alarms?

Therefore, automatic fire extinguishing systems, especially automatic fire alarm systems and automatic fire sprinkler systems have been given importance in all standards around the world, even in our RMG industry.

Where the country is moving forward, why are we lagging in fire safety? The amount of money that had to be invested to ensure the automatic fire safety system in Bangabazar is less than 1 per cent of today’s damage! But it was not only due to negligence and lack of awareness

Fire safety equipment in Bangladesh is mostly import dependent. Very few products are manufactured locally. Most fire safety equipment is made of steel, plastic and rubber. One of the most basic fire safety equipment is the fire extinguisher.

This is essential in all types of installations, big and small. But importing these fire extinguishers is not easy. Every import of fire extinguishers requires two rounds of approval (preliminary and final) from the Explosives Department and approval from the Bangladesh Navy.

These approvals are quite cumbersome and take 20/22 days at least. Many importers have been discouraged and have reduced or discontinued importing fire extinguishers due to this hassle.

Other fire safety equipment is also not very easy to import. A fire extinguishing system is a complete system consisting of many devices and equipment. For example, the government has prescribed one HS code for fire sprinkler systems (84 24 2030) for ease of import yet each product/apparatus is separately assessed and levied at customs. It increases the import cost unexpectedly.

The pipe is an indispensable part of the fire sprinkler system. It can be said that about 60 per cent is spent on pipes. Although there is a pipe factory in Bangladesh, this particular pipe is not made in Bangladesh, it has to be imported.

Duty and other expenses on these pipes are about 93 per cent. In this way, the price of the product increases a lot and the building owners are discouraged. Not only this, while there are duty benefits on the import of fire safety equipment for the garment industry and some service sectors, it is not applicable for other industries.

But the risk of fire is less in other industries? This risk is many times higher in plastic or chemical factories than in garments. Again, this duty benefit is only for the first time. For the expansion of existing buildings or premises, they will not get this advantage.

On the other hand, there is no such policy or authorised authority to prevent the import of low-quality fire safety equipment. There is no proper testing lab for fire safety equipment.

Also, the ongoing dollar crunch is disrupting the fire safety market, with import costs now high in a sector that is mostly imported. But Bangladesh can easily manufacture fire safety equipment and export them abroad to earn a good amount of foreign exchange. All that is needed is encouragement and policy support from the government.

The level of our awareness is also observed from the incident of Bangabazar. Even after giving more than 10 notices, no work has been done. Because awareness and law enforcement, these two things are not the right mix.

All levels of public awareness should be ensured, those who will ensure proper firefighting equipment should be recognised and all should be given basic firefighting training. In addition to all this, dangerous buildings should be identified quickly and they should be strictly controlled with time for renovation.

Zero tolerance shall be given here. We should also refrain from renting and using unsafe buildings, construct buildings/structures in accordance with building codes and fire safety regulations, and install proper fire safety equipment in every premise, office, shop, factory and we also have to be alert about using of all types of electrical and gas related equipment.

One of our major weaknesses is our technical expertise. There is nothing about fire safety in the education system of Bangladesh. But there is a wide scope of skills and employment opportunities here.

There should be fire safety and disaster management education right from the school level. There is no substitute for creating a safe and informed future generation. Along with this, engineering universities should introduce this related course. At the same time, the capacity of the fire service needs to be increased with new technology and manpower.

All in all, it can be said that our country has many achievements and many failures. It would be wise if we can properly identify the problems and take appropriate measures to solve them. Yes, our government is taking many bold initiatives but still, we need more cooperation & nursing.

Now is the time to introduce Bangladesh to the world as a safe investment destination. We all have the responsibility to build a safe Bangladesh.

 

The writer is the secretary general Electronics Safety and Security Association of Bangladesh (ESSAB)

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