Saturday’s blaze at Tardeo’s 20-storeyed Sachinam Heights is yet another reminder notto play with fire. That a simple short-circuit could send six to the graveyard and four times as many to the hospital in a matter of minutes speaks of the destructive power of a fire. Many residents of the building opposite Bhatia Hospital were yet to wake up when the lights went around 7am and thick smoke filled the stairwell and the corridors. As many as 13 fire-tenders and seven jumbo tankers battled the Level 3 fire for eight hours before it could be doused. International studies show it takes about 7.5 minutes for a fire to become a full-blown major fire whereas the Mumbai fire brigade’s response time is about 15 minutes.
The fire would not have spread as fast as it did and it could have been controlled had the building complied with the Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006, which mandates that each commercial complex and housing society must have a working firefighting system which is to be inspected every six months. Commercial complexes generally comply with the rules but housing societies are lax. The firefighting system of Sachinam Heights was in operational.
Mumbai is growing vertically but its residents behave as if they are still living in the four-storeyed buildings of the sixties where a fire was not a catastrophic event. Of the 1,526 buildings, including 52 high-rises randomly inspected by the Mumbai Fire Brigade over a 20-month period till October 2021, as many as 327 were issued notices for noncompliance with fire safety rules while the others were either in the process of compliance or had complied.
In Mumbai, any building taller than 32m (approximately 10 floors without a podium) is a considered a high-rise, going by BMC’s Development Control and Promotion Regulations (DCPR) and any building taller than 120m (approximately 40 floors without a podium) requires an approval by a special state-appointed committee comprising a structural engineer, a geotechnical consultant and the city’s chief fire officer. Every high-rise is supposed to have an underground tank and an overhead tank connected with a pipe (wet riser) which runs through the staircase. Every floor has an outlet and a hose to enable fire-fighting from the inside. Besides, the building ought to have sprinklers and a fire alarm. Not only was the internal firefighting system of Sachinam Heights defunct, they had not conducted a fire drill in four years. It was a miracle that only 30 of its 400 residents had to be rescued by firemen.
According to the Mumbai fire brigade, in 39 per cent of high-rise fires, the internal firefighting system was non-functional. Of the 324 fires reported in the city’s high-rises between January 2020 and October 2021, as many as 127 buildings did not have an operational firefighting system. Apartments in high-rises cost upwards of Rs 3 cr but when it comes to investing in fire safety, residents are unwilling to contribute. When the internal fire-fighting mechanism in high-rises fails,firemen have to lug 150 kg pumps and install them at every tenth floor to train water jets at the fire.
The Mumbai fire brigade has three snorkels (ladder-and-platform vans) that can reach up to 90m, or 30 floors and rescue people gathered at the vacant refuge floor. However, not all buildings have a vacant floor every 15 storeys to serve as a refuge from the fire.In fact, builders cut corners by packing the high-rises tightly, reducing their parking and even the road width. Firemen complain that most buildings don’t have enough space for the former to operate their turntable ladders or aerial ladder platforms. Lokhandwala Complex in Andheri west is a case in point. Sachinam Heights is a redevelopment project and the lane leading to it is narrow and clogged with parked vehicles. The law ought to be enforced but the state government has no moral authority in this matter as it does not follow its own fire safety rules, which was evident in the 2012 Mantralaya blaze that killed five.
The chief cause of fire in residential buildings is electrical short circuit. According to Mumbai Fire Brigade, of the total 26,855 fire incidents reported in the last five years, 20,009 were caused due to an electrical failure or short circuit, which makes it 74.50 per cent. The mandatory electrical audit every five years remains on paper. The last fire in a Mumbai high-rise – on October 22 at the 60-storeyed One Avighna Park at Curry Road, which led to the death of a security guard – was caused by a short circuit on the 19th floor. Besides, there was very little pressure in the internal fire-fighting system.
What is lesser known is the importance of sealing ducts carrying wires or pipes. It is through these ducts that hot air from a fire travels upwards to cause a flash fire. It is through these ducts that the killer smoke spreads across the building. This is precisely what happened in Saturday morning’s fire. People also do not know that they must not use a lift during the fire, that the best way to escape the noxious smoke is to cover your face with a wet towel and lie on the ground. In fact, most even do not know how to use a fire extinguisher. At Sachinam Heights, three of the deaths were because of smoke and six senior citizens had to be put on oxygen because of the smoke they had inhaled.
Hospitals are even more susceptible to fires. Last year, Maharashtra witnessed six hospital fires in which 55 perished. In fact, the blaze in Bhandup’s Sunrise Hospital, which claimed 11 lives, came justtwo months after the one at Bhandara, where ten premature babies died in the civil hospital as the electrical warmer in which they were placed caught fire at night. And these ghastly accidents were preceded by two major hospital fires in Mumbai; at Mulund’s Apex hospital in October 2020, where two critical patients died while being shifted, and at Marol’s ESIC Kamgar Hospitalin December 2018, where nine lives were lost. For the record, 762 hospitals and nursing homes, including three government and 46 BMC hospitals, were found non-compliant with fire safety rules in a survey conducted by the Mumbai fire brigade after the Bhandara hospital fire. No wonder the Global Disease Burden Study of 2017 notes that India accounts for one in every five serious fire accidents of the world.
