'Public recklessness main cause of fire'

Following the blaze that razed over 5,500 kiosks at Tanah Abang Market last week, city residents realized that their properties were vulnerable to fires. However, public negligence of fire systems and safety precautions deserved to be blamed for the blaze. The Jakarta Post talked to some residents on the issue:

Yono, 41, is a meatball soup vendor in West Jakarta, and formerly worked as a construction worker. He lives in Pejompongan, West Jakarta, with friends, while his wife and two children are in Central Java:

Actually, I don't know much about the fires that have broken out in several places in Jakarta. I only know of the latest incident in Tanah Abang Market last week.

I guess most traders there were so ignorant about fire hazards that they neglected to check for anything which could cause a fire.

They don't care about safety, as they only think about making money.

Generally, they don't maintain the electrical system in the market. They forget that jumbled old cables may short circuit and cause sparks.

I just wonder that, nowadays, people seem to be getting more careless and indifferent about safety. It's very different from 20 years ago, when I first came to the city. Fires very rarely happened in the city then.

It's sad that the longer people are here, the sloppier they become about fire safety measures.

Eka Dewi, 21, is a first-year student at the London School of Public Relations in South Jakarta. She resides in Karet, South Jakarta:

I guess the people's negligence deserved to be blamed, following the big fire at Tanah Abang Market.

The fire showed the true picture of how people are becoming more indifferent to and ignorant of fire safety measures.

If they cared so much about safety, they would have responded immediately after the fire gutted the market.

In a way, I can understand that the economic hardship has forced them to be indifferent in such a way that they don't even care about each other. They just think about their own lives. I think this kind of selfishness among city residents has made the situation worse.

It seems they don't pay attention to fire systems and equipment. The water hydrants and fire extinguishers were left unchecked, I guess. Perhaps they just think that the fire system is none of their business.

I think that it would be better to educate the public on how to prevent and fight fires. The more knowledge they have, the more aware they will be.

Even so, it's not impossible that the fire was caused by arson, by a certain group of people with vested interests. So the market and surrounding residences were set on fire on purpose.

As an aside, the city administration should recognize and reward the city Fire Department more. They deserve life insurance, because they have to risk their own lives in putting out fires.

Sadiyo, 50, is an office boy at a private company in Central Jakarta. He lives in East Jakarta with his wife and three children:

I reckon that some of the fires in Jakarta were caused by the carelessness and ignorance of people.

Most traders in markets, such as those in Tanah Abang or Senen, are only concerned about money and, ironically, neglect fire hazards.

They are also careless in designing the electrical systems in their kiosks that they forget the possibility of short circuits. Traders and city residents in densely populated areas should be more aware of their electrical systems.

But I won't leave out the possibility that the fire was lit on purpose, such as what happened to the Taman Puring traditional market last year. The culprits wanted to take advantage of the situation in many ways.

I'm pretty sure that public negligence of fire and electrical systems is the main cause of the fires in the city, even though I don't really watch television or read the newspaper. -- Leo Wahyudi S.