The fire force's nightmare

With nearly 70 per cent of the buildings in Bangalore not being fire-proof and congested roads proving a major hurdle in reaching the spot, fire personnel face an uphill task in fighting infernos

The unchecked growth of the City, which is fast changing its landscape, is stretching to the limit the capacities of its various civic agencies and utilities such as the BBMP, BDA, BMRDA to keep pace with the rising demand for their services.

One of the many woes plaguing Bangalore, but often neglected, is fire safety. On a rough estimate, about 70 per cent of the buildings in the City are not fire-proof — without adequate fire safety measures — or do not have no-objection certificate from the fire department.

The Carlton Towers tragedy that resulted in the death of nine people is a prime example that such mishaps can occur anywhere in the City. Besides lacking in fire safety measures, Carlton Towe­rs was also inaccessible, thanks to encro­achments of its corridors and the drive­way. Further, entrances were too small, staircases sported grilled doors and the terrace was crowded with hoardings.

B K Hamppagol, who retired as Deputy Director (Technical) of Fire and Emergency Services, opined that in most of the fire accidents, the foremost challenge faced by firefighters is inaccessibility.

He categorised inaccessibility into two kinds. One, inaccessibility of the area where a fire has broken out due to narrow lanes packed with matchbox-like structures seen in the old parts of the City. Two, inaccessibility of an accident spot due to structures built with no fire safety norms and maze-like lanes that pose a stiff challenge in case of a fire accident.

In 2011, Karnataka Fire and Emergency Services commissioned Wilbur Smith Associates to do an evaluation of fire hazard response and mitigation plan. The report identified eight wards in City limits as ‘very high risk’ zones, posing a threat to the safety of citizens in the core Bangalore region.

The ‘very high risk zones’ are mainly concentrated in dense residential, commercial and defence establishment areas. These are the pete areas, Richmond Town, Malleswaram, Baiyyappanahalli, Peenya, C V Raman Nagar and Byatara­yanapura. The report also classifies 12 areas as ‘high risk,’ 10 ‘medium’ and nine as ‘low risk’ zones.

However, the report classifies these areas based on two criteria: availability of fire station in the vicinity and the population. “Clearly, the report is an AC room survey, without practical experience on the ground,” said Hamppagol. The report does not take into account inaccessibility of areas, traffic congestion in peak hours and many other practical factors.

For example, the central business district comprising Chikpet, Mamulpet, Tharagupet, Balepet, Avenue Road and many other narrow-laned, packed, congested areas where a fire tender cannot enter, are not classified as high-risk zones because a fire station is situated within a radius of a kilometre from the area. However, if a fire breaks out in these congested areas, dense with both commercial and residential establishments and high floating population, the fire department faces a huge challenge in reaching the spot.

“Imagine huge Tata trucks modified into fire tenders going into the narrow bylanes of Chikpet. The width of a vehicle is more than that of many roads there,” says a senior firefighter. Hamppagol says that this can be corrected in new layouts, but nothing can be done in the old City. So, the fire department has adapted itself to the prevailing conditions. He said the Karnataka fire department is the first in the country to acquire modified water mist on motorbikes (Agni) with a 18-litre capacity and water mist on jeep (Varuna) with a 50-litre capacity.

These vehicles use a new technology that each drop of water is broken into millions of microns of mist, making up for the lower water storage capacity. Hamppagol said, to overcome the problem of inaccessibility of certain areas, the department is deploying these two-whe­elers and four-wheelers. However, in case of a major fire, these vehicles cannot do the job of the regular fire tenders. Usually, a fire tender has a water pipe that is 1,000 feet long. In such cases, the firefighters take the larger fire tenders upto wherever they can reach and from there extend the water pipes. Hamppagol said that by this method, there was the risk of wastage of water, leakage and even bursting of the pipe because of pressure. But there is no other choice, he says.

Road congestion

One of the other major hindrances for the immediate response of fire tenders is the burgeoning traffic on the City roads, making the fire spot inaccessible quickly. Fire officials say this can be mitigated with proper co-ordination with the traffic police. The fire department authorities have direct co-ordination with traffic authorities. They alert the traffic policemen on the route taken by the fire tenders. In case of a fire call, the department first sends out two-wheelers, then cars and finally the fire tenders, so that two-wheelers and small cars can easily manoeuvre through the traffic. In spite of this co-ordination, traffic many a time is the main obstacle that lengthens the
response time.

The Standing Fire Advisory Committee (SFAC) of the Government of India mandates that there should be a fire station for every 50,000 population or 10 sq km. The Wilbur Smith Report of 2011 has said the City needs at least 79 fire stati­ons. However, the City presently has only 14 fire stations. Six new fire stations have been sanctioned and are yet in the proce­ssing stage. Even then, the City stares at a deficiency of 59 fire stations.

Hamppagol said there were many areas in the City where the nearest fire station is far away and the response time to such areas increases drastically. The Wilbur Smith Report prescribes three minutes, which may extend up to a maximum of five minutes, as good response time. However, in the present circumstances, it is impossible to achieve this response time, says Hamppagol.

He said the City urgently needed at least another 15 stations on a priority basis, thereby tactically reducing the response time in any eventuality.

Apart from government funds, one of the major hurdles to establish new stations is land. The civic agencies often do not co-operate by giving land for fire stations. He said the BDA had asked the department to pay for land to set up fire stations in some places. He said, at least in the new layouts being developed by BDA, including Arkavathy Layout, they should earmark two acres for a fire station.

The Wilbur Smith Report also propo­sed an investment of Rs 390 crore in providing the latest technology and infrast­ructure to the department. However, not a single rupee has been sanctioned to the department after the report was tabled, says a senior Fire department official.

On a rough estimate, the City has at least 20,000 highrise buildings. Any building above 15 metres high is considered highrise. The rule book says that ideally a width of one-third of the height of the building should be left vacant around the building floor space for the free movement of fire tenders. The Fire department also prescribes that the floor should be hard enough to sustain the movement of at least a 45-tonne vehicle on it. Apart from these two basic norms, highrises should have proper ventilation, wide staircases never blocked by grill gates, fire safety exits at every corridor kept wide enough and many other measures.

“Of the approximately 20,000 highrises, at least 40 per cent of the buildings do not have even basic fire safety norms,” says Hamppagol.

The fire department blames the civic agencies for these fire-prone building structures. A senior official said that it was these civic agencies which approve building plans and give them permission. The Fire department is expected to only give an NoC (No Objection Certificate), which many don’t even bother to take. Hamppagol said civic agencies like the BBMP, BMRDA and BDA have in many instances imposed fines, given permission and regularised these buildings, with complete apathy to fire safety. “Finally, it is we, the firemen at the accident spot, who suffer for this,” he rued. The fire department has no punitive powers.