Fighting fit

Delhi needs more adaptive fire-fighting facilities

The fire at Anaj Mandi, which left 43 people dead — all of them labourers in an illegal factory — revealed yet again the venal face of the officialdom and small business owners. Multiple rules were broken — from running factories in residential areas to the lack of a no-objection certificate from the fire department, workers living on the factory premises — pointing strongly to a nexus. The factory owner has been duly arrested but it remains to be seen whether any punitive action will be taken against complicit local municipal officials. The tragedy is the latest in a long list of fatality-causing fires in the capital. All of them — without exception — were the result of lax vigilance and rule-breaking by local authorities. The wearying, repetitive cause of these tragedies follows a predictable trajectory: State and central governments, which divide the city’s administration between them, blame each other; to assuage a temporary outbreak of popular indignation some arrests are made and new rules are issued before the situation relapses into its default state of corruption and collusion.

Clearly, as media comment points out ad nauseam, these are issues that demand a systemic overhaul by courageous political leadership. Since this might be a while coming, it would help in the meanwhile if a more practical approach were taken to the state’s firefighting capabilities. Right now, most urban firefighting equipment is tailored for the broad avenues of Lutyens’ Delhi and the affluent colonies of south Delhi. But the truth is, slums and crowded residential areas take up the bulk of the city’s space, and these spaces are all fire hazards waiting to happen. In and of themselves the narrow streets, close proximity of buildings, and overhead tangle of electricity wires make these areas vulnerable to fire; rampant illegal activity only heightens the risk. An exploding cooking cylinder could do as much damage as the spark in a poorly maintained (or stolen) electricity cable. These are areas in which large cars struggle to manoeuvre, let alone mammoth trucks. All of these present serious challenges to the city’s fire-fighting services and urgently demand that they adjust their mode of operations accordingly. The tragedy of Anaj Mandi is best exemplified by the fact that some 30 fire trucks were dispatched, but only one could get through the clogged alleyways. As a result, it took the fire services five hours to contain the fire. Many victims were put into autorickshaws and taxis for the trip to hospital and several died on the way for lack of adequate medical facilities. Had it not been for the bravery of two firefighters, who saved 27 people, the death toll would have been much higher.

Given the frequency of these fires in such areas, it may be time for the firefighting services to focus on acquiring equipment and expertise to tackle fires in congested conditions. Longer bowsers from the water-carrying trucks would be one obvious answer, as would be smaller vehicles that can manoeuvre severely restricted gullies to enable firefighters with basic equipment and ambulances to reach ground zero quickly. These are easy changes to introduce and, if implemented side by side with honest and vigilant imposition of rules, could save many more lives in Dehi’s fire-prone zones.