EDITORIAL - Fire season

The bougainvilleas are bursting with flowers and mangoes are at their sweetest as the weather becomes warmer this month. The dry season also heralds more fires. In the first two months of the year alone, 2,103 fires have been recorded nationwide. The Bureau of Fire Protection said this was an increase of 12.88 percent from the 1,863 incidents recorded during the same period last year. Yesterday, the first day of Fire Prevention Month, the BFP reported at least three fires in different parts of the country.

BFP officials said the most common cause of fires is faulty electrical wiring. In crowded communities where dwellings are made of flimsy materials, a minor electrical spark or an unattended candle can set off a fire that can spread rapidly, razing the area and causing death.

Informal settlements aren’t the only vulnerable areas. The country has seen some of the deadliest conflagrations, many of them caused by faulty electrical wiring. In December 1998, a pre-dawn fire gutted the 85-year-old Bahay Kalinga orphanage in Paco, Manila, killing 25 children including babies as well as five adults. The two-story structure was made largely of wood.

The high death toll is often due to failure to comply with fire safety rules such as the installation of proper fire exits and maintenance of functioning fire extinguishers. These were the problems seen in the blaze that killed 162 people, many of them students, at the Ozone Disco on March 18, 1986, and the fire at the Kentex rubber slipper factory that killed 74 people, mostly workers on May 13, 2015.

Apart from the problem of lax compliance with fire safety regulations, the country’s firefighting capability still needs upgrading. While improvements have been made in the past year with the acquisition of more firetrucks and equipment, many parts of the country still lack trucks and other requirements for firefighting including long ladders, fireproof apparel and equipment for fighting chemical fires.

Over the years, fire prevention awareness has improved along with firefighting capability, but so much more can be done to save lives and property from destruction by fire. These points will be highlighted again for more action this Fire Prevention Month.