Civil Defence steps up safety campaign over industrial fire fears

Inspectors are pushing companies to install fire alarms after fires caused Dh1 billion in damages this year.

DUBAI // The Civil Defence is pressing ahead with a campaign to improve fire safety in factories, warehouses and labour camps after a series of industrial fires this year, including one which gutted 80 warehouses and caused damage estimated at Dh1 billion (US$272 million). In the past two months 10 teams of civil defence inspectors have carried out 3,683 fire-safety inspections in industrial establishments, handing out 509 warnings and ordering further investigations of 245 sites.

They are not only checking factories, warehouses and workers' camps for faulty alarm systems, faulty elevators, unfilled water tanks and other inadequate fire-safety provisions, but are also inspecting the 54 companies that install and maintain industrial fire alarms. "We will make sure they install the right equipment and keep it properly maintained," said a spokesman. Exposed electrical wires, improperly stored flammable materials and blocked emergency exits were among the potentially lethal problems found by inspectors.

About 90 per cent of labour camps, where hundreds or thousands of workers live, had no fire alarms and in 80 per cent of them cooking-gas cylinders were kept in buildings where the workers lived and slept. Sixty-five per cent of the rooms in the sleeping quarters were overcrowded. In 85 per cent of the cases, sleeping quarters were also used for storage. Owners who fail to address hazards identified in their buildings can be fined up to Dh50,000 and the business may be shut down if they fail to set matters right within a set time, which can be as little as two weeks.

All warehouse alarm systems are being electronically linked to civil defence headquarters to cut response times when fires break out. Civil defence officials believe that many of the fires that have destroyed industrial buildings in Dubai were avoidable. The massive warehouse fire in Al Quoz in March, which killed two people and took days to extinguish, was caused by the explosion of fireworks illegally stored in a warehouse.

All new industrial buildings will be obliged to install new technologies at the planning stage. Detailed data on the buildings will be stored for use by firefighters. Older buildings will also have to install fire-safety equipment. Civil defence experts plan a second phase of inspections, which will take place at hospitals, hotels and public buildings. When inspectors find breaches of fire-safety regulations, they give owners and occupiers of industrial buildings a time limit for rectifying them and then return to check that the necessary improvements have been carried out. "We will keep inspecting and going back," a spokesman said.

A civil defence statement said: "The owners of buildings are responsible for maintenance and fire alarm systems in buildings, and they bear legal responsibilities for maintenance and fire alarm systems in buildings and to ensure they work." However, recent inspections have shown only a slight decline in the number of warehouses, factories and labour camps vulnerable to fire. The number of industrial companies guilty of dangerous storage practices fell last month to 87 per cent, from 90 per cent in June. The number of unlicensed warehouses fell five per cent to 75 per cent, but the proportion of companies failing to clean up the spaces between adjacent warehouses remained at 75 per cent.

The proportion of factories in which stored items blocked civil defence access points fell to 65 per cent in July from 90 per cent in June, but 40 per cent still failed to maintain fire alarm systems, the inspectors found. @Email:[e-mail]