According to Fire Brigade and Civil Defence officials, fire causes damages worth about Tk 725 crore annually in the country. But as the Fire Brigade and Civil Defence is not equipped with any information cell, it is unable to provide any information on damages in Dhaka -- one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

Despite indispensability, successive governments neglected the importance of an efficient fire fighting force for the city. The existing force of fire fighters remains extremely incapable to handling a large-scale fire.

A fire service control room source said that 70 percent of the reported fire incidents took place in Dhaka and Chittagong.

Disappearing water sources, narrow road networks, slow and chaotic traffic in the city are making fire fighting increasingly difficult day by day, said a fire fighter at Mirpur. "It is high time we looked into the crippling problems of fire fighting in the city and resolve those," he added.

"Dire consequence of the recent inferno in the 11-storey Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation (BSEC) Bhaban at Karwan Bazar on February 26 could be an example of fire hazard negligence," he said. "For the first time, the media appreciated our bravery and pointed out our technical incapability."

"We saved several hundred people with the only Turntable Ladder of the country which is not really appropriate to serve the purpose."

To explain how vulnerable this city is to fire hazards, he said although Banga Bazar is located right across the fire services head quarters, a little can be saved by the fire services if the market catches fire.

Brig Gen Rafirur Rahman, director general of Fire Brigade and Civil Defence told Star City that fire damages worth around Tk 725 crore are reported annually, but lots more go unreported. "I personally believe that the real amount of damage due to fire is many times more," he said.

Civil Defence and Rescue Service was unified in 1982 to form Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Service. That was a development for the organisation, but it still needs modern equipment and adequate training to fight fire in urban areas, the fire chief added.

He put the emphasis on various issues to prevent fire including creating designated water reservoirs around the city, enforcing fire licences for warehouses and factories, launching a fire safety campaign, ensuring regular checking and proper maintenance of electrical and radiation sensible equipment in buildings.

He also emphasised that Fire Prevention and Dousing Act 2003 (Ogni Protirodh O Nirbapon Ain-2003) and the amended Building Construction Act 1952 needs to be implemented through conducting mobile drives against violators.

He suggested that fire hydrants, designated water pipelines with outlets, could be installed throughout the city streets from which fire fighters can obtain water for putting out a fire. "Water pressure would not be a problem for us if water was available in the hydrants. Water reservoirs like ponds and cannels inside the city should be restored and maintained to solve water crisis during any fire."

The fire chief also stressed the need for setting up designated emergency road lanes on city streets to reach a fire site in time without getting stuck in traffic. A coordinated road clearance arrangement for fire trucks by the traffic control room can also help fire fighters reach a spot smoothly.

"A modern training complex at Mirpur is under construction and it is about to be finished. Also, I am hoping receive a highly capable Turntable Ladder by mid next year," Gen Rahman said about recent initiatives taken at his organisation.