In iron grilles we shouldn’t trust
Malaysians feel safe with bars on their windows and doors. But the latest fire tragedy shows it is the opposite that is true.
MANY years ago, a relative’s house caught fire on Christmas Eve. He returned from our family dinner to find the top floor of his home in flames.
The fire was apparently caused by a short circuit and gutted the entire upstairs area. We shuddered to think of the dire consequences if the fire had occurred later when the family was asleep.
That incident was why my husband and I installed ceiling smoke detectors and openable window grilles in all the upstairs bedrooms when we moved into our new home.
But over time, we got complacent. We neither checked whether the smoke alarms were in working order nor opened the grilles to make sure the locks and bolts had not rusted over. We even forgot where the keys were kept.
It took a house fire that occurred early this year to jolt us out of our complacency.
On Feb 2 at 5.30am, four members of a family died in their Subang Jaya, Selangor, double-storey terrace house when a faulty power supply unit of a desktop computer on the ground floor caught fire.
The parents and their two sons could not escape from the upper floor, trapped by bolted-down grilles on their windows.
The tragedy hit me hard because it made me realise it could have very well been my home that caught fire. My husband and I decided to review our fire safety measures.
The first thing was to look for the keys and check the locks on the grilles. It was then that we saw how rusted they were and opening the grilles took some effort as the bolts had become stiff from disuse.
I bought six fire blankets and several extinguishers and placed them in my kitchen, living room and upstairs hall.
My husband felt that being able to open the grilles was not enough to help us reach the ground safely so he ordered two retractable aluminium ladders that are now stored on the balconies.
He made the family go through a drill on how to position the ladders, secure them with ropes and hooks and practise climbing down.
I must say I grumbled about it as I felt it would be rather embarrassing if the neighbours caught sight of us clambering down ladders.
Our eldest daughter pointed out that we would still be trapped even if we made it safely to the ground because we wouldn’t be able to open the electric gates. Her solution: a spare key in the letter box to unlock the side gate.
That was in March. And, as usual, we have fallen back on our old ways. We haven’t checked the locks nor greased the bolts on the grilles for months. And I can’t quite remember how to position and secure the ladders.
It took yet another tragedy to remind me not to take things for granted. The 5.15am fire at the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah tahfiz school in Kuala Lumpur last week killed 21 boys, two of their teachers and injured six other students.
I cried reading the heart-breaking stories of how the young victims screamed for help as they found themselves trapped on the upper floor. But I also felt anger and frustration.
How many times do we need to go through this sort of needless loss of lives?
Even though police investigations show the fire was incendiary arson, allegedly set by a group of teenagers as a revenge attack, the fact remains the 23 victims died most likely because there were no fire extinguishers in the boarding school and, more importantly, no way to open the window grilles that would have given them an escape route.
While fires are not a major cause of death as compared to, say, road accidents, between 2012 and 2014, the total number of victims in residential fires increased by about 30%, as reported by Universiti Malaya’s Centre for Construction, Building and Urban Studies.
The researchers analysed 2,423 residential fires in Selangor over the three-year period and found the two most common causes to be electrical failure and negligence during cooking.
That’s why almost 50% of the fires started in the kitchen followed by the bedroom and living room, places most likely to have many electrical appliances.
Very few fires actually caused fatalities and residential fires made up less than 10% of the overall cases in that period. Yet they accounted for about 61% of the overall fire deaths and 48% of overall fire injuries per year.
Safe as houses, as the old saying goes, and in Malaysia, it is practically automatic for just about every homeowner to install grilles on doors and windows for safety’s sake. It is so ingrained in us that we feel unsafe without them, even if we have alarm systems.
When I installed my window grilles, I opted for the ones that could be opened and secured with locks. Now there are better options like key-less locking and detachable versions.
One would think that people would know what is good for them and their loved ones and do the right thing. But we know that is not always the case. That’s why we have laws on wearing safety belts and helmets.
For the same reason, there should be a law to make it mandatory that only openable or detachable grilles can be installed on the upper floors of residences.
Ultimately, the responsibility lies with us. I take some comfort that I have put in place fire safety measures in my home but I know I can do more, like checking on my electrical appliances regularly. The family also needs a refresher evacuation drill with the ladders. Never mind what the neighbours think. In fact, I would be quite pleased if they got curious enough to ask what we were up to.