Fire checks soon at all govt offices

A senior fire official said as most government offices are known to have large quantities of stored papers,files and old wooden furniture,they will soon start inspecting all offices to ensure that fire safety norms are followed.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had ordered on Friday for an immediate removal of all scrap material from its offices and clearing of all blocked emergency exits.

“We realised that government offices are most vulnerable in a fire situation because generally these do not have hi-tech fire fighting installations and the number of people present here is always large. These offices also have unorganised storage of papers and files and wooden furniture which is highly inflammable. An inspection is needed to eliminate fire traps like in the case of Mantralaya,” said the official.

Fire officials admitted that a number stored LPG cylinders were found on all floors,though it is yet to be ascertained if any of them exploded and further fueled the fire. Officials also admitted that despite being the state’s most important building,Mantralaya had not complied with the rule of carrying out a fire-audit of the building every six months.

As per the Maharashtra Fire Prevention & Life Safety Measure Act,2006 it is mandatory for all buildings having more than six floors to get a fire-safety audit done by an agency licensed by Maharashtra Fire Services and submit the report to the fire brigade authorities.

Meanwhile,the final logs prepared by the fire brigade control show that even as the fire broke out at 2.46 pm on Thursday,the ‘fire-surrounded’ message was given only at 2.45 pm on Friday,that is 24 hours later. A fire surrounded message is given when the fire brigade thinks that the fire is surrounded on all sides. Even as fire stopped raging at 2.30 am on Friday,the ‘fire-controlled’ message was given at 5 pm on Friday.

This meant that fire would not spread but there were small,smoldering fire pockets in the building.

All these were finally put out and the fire was completely doused only by 9.15 pm on Friday. Usually,the fire-fighting teams leave the spot once the ‘fire-stopped’ message is sent,but on this occasion fire brigade has decided to keep a team on stand-by as a safety measure considering the importance of the building,an official said.

The fire-investigating team started its work on Sunday after cooling operations were concluded. “The first step is to start speaking to eye-witnesses from the fourth floor because this is where the fire is believed to have originated,” said an official.