Fire safety measures a joint responsibility
Every resident must adopt best practices to help authorities reduce the incidents
Eight lives were lost due to yet another fire, this time in a villa in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday morning. Earlier this year, two other villa fires in Sharjah and Fujairah claimed the lives of six adults and seven children, respectively. This is shocking as it brings home the truth about the needless loss of lives, but it also demands a re-examination of the underlying causes of such calamities.
What triggers such tragedies? How big a role does human error or lack of awareness play in these outcomes?
The issue of fire safety is among the top priorities of the UAE. There are robust laws and regulations in place to combat this problem. There is also the plan to link every premise, residential and commercial, across the UAE to a centralised fire-alarm receiving system. The first batch of buildings were scheduled to be connected to Hassantuk, the UAE’s smart monitoring, alert and control system launched in October 2017, by the first quarter of 2018, with all installations to be completed by 2023.
The UAE has also updated its fire safety code that was first adopted in 2011, and which came into effect in 2017. It has guidelines for all stakeholders, including developers, consultants, owners, tenants, facility management, school and hospital management. The role of house owners and tenants also takes a central place in the pre-emptive approach to safety with punitive terms applicable to cases of fire safety violations.
These initiatives hold great preemptive power with particular attention being given to home owners because the latter is often the single most critical factor behind fire tragedies. Most investigations of fire incidents turn up a recurring theme: The role of human error or negligence or simply a lack of awareness on the part of the victims’ family.
The unfortunate truth is that many people are still not fully cognisant of how vulnerable they and their loved ones are when a fire breaks out. The minutiae of fire-proofing a home is indeed a demanding task. It calls for many things, from common sense acts such as installing smoke detectors and fire alarms and using fire-retardant materials for construction and decor at home to responsible living based on tutoring family members, particularly children, on fire hazards. There is much to be said also of residents’ participating in fire drills, and of building owners conducting them, to hone life-saving reflexes. These are not optional measures; they can make the difference between life and death. The sooner we adopt them, the faster will the UAE fulfil its objectives of reducing fire incidents. Because, truly, there is no alternative.