Societies not keen on fire audit: fire officer

The major inferno at a commercial highrise in Andheri on Friday once again brought to the fore the casual attitude of people and reasserts the fact that the fire brigade is a toothless tiger. There have been quite a few instances of fire in highrises in the city in the recent times. However, most of the buildings in the area haven't yet conducted fire audits, as they lack adequate fire safety measures or have non-functional ones.

Few societies approach the dept seeking help for fire audit. People show interest only when fire occurs in their building or in a neighboring building," said an officer. On Friday, officials couldn't ascertain whether the Andheri building had carried out fire safety audit. They were, however, sure that the fire safety system in the building hadn't functioned.

Apart from fire audit for which a society takes the initiative, general fire inspections are usually carried out by 83 fire officers, since there are not enough registered agencies in the city to undertake the task.
"While carrying out inspections, we give preference to places with higher footfalls such as malls, theatres, hospitals, schools, industrial estates and commercial buildings," said an officer.

Till March 31, fire brigade has carried out 3,469 inspections and has issued notices to 1,357 structures. However, there were only four prosecutions. Last December, a massive fire broke out on the 12th floor of the 26-storey Mont Blanc building at Kemps Corner, claiming the life of five residents and injuring five firefighters. A fire prevention cell comprising 99 officials is expected to be constituted by this year end.

Sharad Kuveskar, vice-president, Mumbai Firefighters Services Union, said staff shortage was the major problem fire fighters faced. "There are enough machines, but not enough manpower to operate them," said Kuveskar. There are about 2,000 firemen in the city which actually requires at least 5,000.