The danger of fires
The danger of fires
Although the long and notably wet rainy season -- which
should, by the experts' reckoning, already have left us -- still
seems reluctant to go away, the fire that destroyed the Hotel
Perdana Wisata in Bandung last Monday should serve as a timely
reminder to Jakartans that steps must be taken now to prevent
similar or worse accidents from occurring in the capital with the
onset of the dry season in the coming months.
The hotel fire last Monday can certainly be called one of
Bandung's worst in recent years. It left three people dead and
scores of others injured, not to mention the material damage it
inflicted on the hotel's guests and its owners. As it happened,
many of the hotel's guests who tried to escape the fire in a
panic were foreigners, including the Spanish police officer
Miguel Mancilla, who was on leave from the United Nations
Transitional Administration in East Timor.
But why should Jakartans prepare for similar accidents, or
worse, so far ahead of time while there is seemingly nothing to
indicate that Jakarta's fire department will be unable to cope
with such emergencies?
It would be well to remember that it was probably this same
kind of undue confidence, or overconfidence, that led to neglect
and thereby caused so much damage and suffering during the recent
flooding in the capital.
It is also well to remember that Jakarta, with its
urbanization problems, is especially prone to damaging fires. In
the first eight months of 2001, there were 437 fires in Jakarta,
with 80 percent of them occurring in slum areas. Fires in
Jakarta's slums usually occur due to electrical shorts caused by
faulty wiring. Many residents in slum areas also use kerosene for
both cooking and lighting, thereby adding to the danger.
Poverty aggravates the situation. When a fire breaks out in
a slum neighborhood, residents panic and the first thing they do
is try to save their belongings. Calling the fire department
comes second. And when firefighters arrive on the scene with
their fire engines, they often find two obstacles standing in the
way of their carrying out their job properly: First, water
hydrants are often absent, and second, narrow alleyways and
streets prevent them from getting close enough to the fire to put
it out.
Another factor that adds to the problem is that Jakarta's fire
department lacks both adequate equipment and human resources.
This city of more than 10 million people has only 150 fire
engines, mostly old and in dismal condition, and some 2,600
firefighters, many of them weary with age. There are only about
1,000 water hydrants in the whole of Jakarta, and not all of them
function properly. And as might be expected, hydrants are usually
absent in the city's slum areas. A fire engine can carry only
about 4,000 liters of water, which is about enough for only 19
minutes.
Though it is true that uncontrolled urbanization and
overpopulation contribute greatly to the danger of fires, it must
not be assumed that fires are exclusively a problem of slum
areas. Jakarta fire department officials have found that in many
office buildings in the city, fire safety is often ignored.
Managers of modern office buildings have been found to be
careless about maintaining their fire-fighting equipment, such as
alarms and sprinklers.
Given these factors, educating the public about the danger of
fires is obviously the first step that must be taken. This
campaign must include not only residents of the city's poorer
neighborhoods, but tenants of modern office blocks as well. And
to ensure that the necessary safety measures are working, regular
inspections must be held.
Let Monday's hotel fire in Bandung and the recent flooding of
Jakarta be a lesson for the capital's residents and leaders that
it is never too early to take action, even within the limits of
the resources available. Only by doing so can a disaster on the
scale of that of the recent floods be contained, even if not
prevented.