The Fire Service and Civil Defence has equipment similar to those seen in many developed nations and can reach a disaster spot within twenty minutes despite Dhaka being a city of traffic jams.
However, after the recent blaze in Banani, there has been talk to increase the capacity of the fire service further. Fire service officials feel that while the capacity of the fire department needs to be ramped up, buildings in the city have to be constructed following construction guidelines.
The government took the initiative to raise the capacity of the fire service after the 2007 fire at BSEC building and the 2009 incident at the Bashundhara Shopping Mall.
At the moment, the fire service has can reach up to 60 metres with their equipment which has to be taken beyond 70 metres. Also, efforts are underway to bring down the ‘reaching accident spot’ time to ten minutes from twenty.
Fire service officials feel that until the fire department comes with support, all establishments must have enough equipment to keep the fire under control for ten to fifteen minutes.
At present, the A and B categories of stations have four and three cars respectively. The water carrying cars can carry between 1,800 litre to 6,500 litres of water. The special cars carry between 11,000 and 21,000 litres of water
Other equipment includes, towing vehicle foam tender, ambulance, rescue command vehicle, aerial platform, multi-purpose fire rescue vehicle, wrecker van, mini bus, rescue speed boat, frog lifter and others.
Initiatives have been taken to include a diving unit and the government has taken a Tk 1.65 billion project to expand the service.
At present, fire service has only 25 divers which are inadequate. To tackle water vessel disasters, 14 rescue boats, seven pontoons, seven rescue vehicles, portable de-compressor chamber and other items will be bought.
There is also plan to establish 11 new stations by 2021 at a cost of Tk. 629 crore.
At present, there are 341 fire stations across the country and under four projects another 262 stations are being established.
DG of Fire Service and Civil Defence, brigadier Md Sajjad Hossain, said: “The multi storied buildings must keep proper fire safety equipment that would be able to keep the flames under control for twenty minutes. Within that time fire service will reach the spot and do the rest.”
The building code has to be followed; once proper safety measures are in place, we will be safe, he added.