'Please take fire safety norms very seriously'

Where there's smoke... Eight fire engines and seven water tanks were pressed into service to put out the fire at Peninsula Chambers, Lower Parel, yesterday morning. pics/nimesh dave

By: Rita Ghose and Varun Singh Date: 2008-07-19

The fire that broke out at Peninsula Chambers in Peninsula Corporate Park in Lower Parel at 8.30 am yesterday, has raised several questions about fire safety in high rises. According to P D Karguppikar, deputy fire officer, the cause of the fire was a short circuit.

Smoke billowed from the basement of Peninsula Chambers, luckily no one was injured, as officegoers had not arrived. Police smashed glass windows and pumped in water to douse the fire while onlookers gathered on the sidewalks. Eight fire engines and seven water tanks were pressed into service to douse the fire.

"Every high rise has two alternate sources of electric supply — one from BEST and the other from a diesel generator. In this case, the diesel generator did not work, as it was on manual mode rather than automatic, so the sprinklers did not start. Also the electrical shaft (through which all main electric lines pass) in the building, which should be sealed, was open allowing the fire to spread rapidly," said Karguppikar.

No punitive power

He added, "A notice regarding the breach of safety norms in the building will be issued within a week. People do not take fire safety norms seriously as fire officials do not have punitive power."

A fire official said, "The basic mistakes that all high rises make is non-maintenance of basic fire safety installations. No matter how much you spend on a building, what matters are fire safety precautions."

Precautions

But a spokesperson from Peninsula said, "Our systems were all in place and an alarm was raised immediately. The building was vacated in five minutes. We take all fire safety precautions including fire drills and regular checks on fire equipment. In fact, the fire officials used our hydrants to extinguish the fire."

Source http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/jul/190708PeninsulaChambers2.htm