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.