Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Atiqul Islam has said the owners who will not ensure fire safety at their buildings will lose licence.
“We are assessing necessary fire safety measures at all buildings. If the necessary safety measures are not in place, we will give the owners a reasonable time to make their buildings fire compliant with their own money. If they fail to produce results within that time frame, we will revoke their trade licence.”
The DNCC mayor made the remarks, at a seminar titled “Fire Hazard in Building: Recent Crisis”, on Saturday at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) auditorium, organized by BUET alumni association, and demand Bnbc Gazette within the shortest time.
“We have made garment factories safe and compliant. For this reason, I am hopeful to do the same with other buildings,” he said.
He also said the DNCC will declare 20 buildings as ‘model buildings’ which will be fully fire compliant so as to encourage others.
BNBC coming soon
The mayor went on to saying that, the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) will be announced within the shortest possible time. “I have talked with the public works minister… We are getting BNBC very soon,” he said.
While speaking, BUET Alumni Association President Prof Dr Jamilur Reza Chowdhury said: “Every building has a deficiency in fire safety management system. From now on, designers and users have to be careful about this.”
Compliance in garment factories have to be sustainable and this experience should apply to other buildings, he went on saying.
“The BNBC have to be of international standard. A separate authority incorporated the BNBC following a High Court order,” he added.
Architect Kazi M Arif moderated the programme which was attended by prominent architects.
BUET Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dr Saiful Islam said that BNBC was drafted in 2010, but is yet to be published. “When BNBC does see the light, the situation will improve,” he added.
Director General of Fire Service and Civil Defense, Brig Gen (Retd) Ali Ahmed Khan pointed out the challenges, gaps, and way forward to tackle this situation.
Use of highly flammable interior decorative materials, absence of fire detectors and fire alarms, traffic jam, delayed information, narrow roads, insufficient water sources, crowd, violation of building code, insufficient fire stations in both urban and industrial areas, improper safety measures in high rise and industrial buildings, lack of hydrants, barriers in exit points and staircase, and dense smoke cloud, are the challenges, he mentioned.
Later, he also recommended several measures, including increased capacity for building regulatory bodies for enforcement of fire codes, establishing satellite fire stations in vulnerable places to reduce response time, establishing integrated city hydrant system and water points for fire service, introducing third party fire safety compliance for monitoring, inspection, and auditing with support of specialized and professional fire consultant company, setting up of guidelines for retrofitting, and performance-based design for buildings to get rid of fire hazards.