Electrical fault tagged as key cause of many longhouse fires in Sarawak
KUCHING: Electrical fault has been identified as the key cause of almost half of longhouse fires occurring between Jan 1, 2015 and July 31 this year.
Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) Sarawak director Khirudin Drahman said out of the 120 cases reported in period under review, 54 were caused by electrical fault, followed by gas appliances with 29 cases, open fire with 18 cases, matches/ lighters with eight cases, oil lamps with five cases, candles with three cases, and other sources, also three cases.
“The highest recorded number of longhouse fires was in 2018, with 24 cases. From the total, 12 cases were caused by electrical fault,” he said in his presentation of data at Sarawak Fire and Rescue Department’s headquarters here yesterday.
He also said throughout the same period under review, fires had caused eight longhouse villagers to suffer burn injuries, and also the death of three individuals – one in Sarikei in 2017, one in Bintangor in 2017, and another in Selangau last year.
Khirudin added that in all the 120 cases, fires had affected 1,554 ‘pintu’ (longhouse units) and incurred losses amounting to RM95,696,622; whereas 1,074 units had been saved from being burned down throughout the same period under review.
Moreover, the hours between 6am and noon recorded the highest number of cases, at 44
– or 37 per cent of total cases, while the hours between midnight and 6am recorded the lowest, at 17 cases or 14 per cent from the total.
According to him, the number of properties saved from fires had been increasing since 2018 – thanks to effective awareness campaigns run by the department, meant to educate the longhouse folk about fire prevention and safety, as well as things to do and not to do in face of an emergency.
“This is why it is important for us to hold engagement programmes with the community to educate them on the ‘5Es’ – ‘Education, Engineering, Emergency Response Team (ERT), Enforcement and Economic Initiative’,” he added.
Moreover, he said the department had trained hundreds of members of the volunteer firefighting units and also the community ERT across Sarawak.
“With such units or teams in place, they would be the first responders to any longhouse fire, which is crucial during the first 15 minutes of the incident.
“Still, the response time to an emergency, especially in a rural or remote area, still needs to be improved.
“Among the ways to improve this is to build more stations throughout Sarawak, especially areas in the central region where the majority of longhouses fire cases have been recorded.
“The Sibu region currently has 12 Fire and Rescue stations, with another four still in the proposal stage,” he said, adding with more stations, the response time could be greatly improved as each station would cover areas within its 10km radius.
For the record, the response time of 62 per cent of Fire and Rescue stations across Sarawak last year was less than 10 minutes.
On emergency calls recorded between Jan 1, 2015 to July 31 this year, Khirudin said among all zones, Sibu recorded the highest number of calls about longhouse fires, at 38; while the station that received the highest number of calls about longhouse fires was Marudi station, which recorded 17 calls during the period under review.