Playing with fire, risking lives

Accidental fires have become commonplace in the city, often fatal, as witnessed from three massive fire mishaps in less than a year’s time. At a time when every concrete structure enclosing electric circuits, and inflammable material should be essentially looked upon as a potential fire hazard, there is utter disregard for even minimal fire safety precautions such as availability of water connection to firefighting appliances. All the three structures had illegal appendages, and two of them circumvented fire safety norms mandatory for the buildings that size. Rama Rao, along with his cabinet colleagues Mohammed Mahmood Ali, and Talasani Srinivas Yadav, on Wednesday has resolved to conduct fire safety audit of the high-rises and huge structures in Hyderabad and other cities, including commercial buildings, hospitals and schools. Use of drones and robotics technology in maintaining fire safety of tall structures, study of best practices adopted by other cities in and out of the country, training classes for existing fire staff, modern equipment and resources to the Fire Services, and involving building owners in maintaining fire safety are a few more proposals that evolved from the meeting, besides the decision to pay ₹5 lakh ex-gratia to the kin of each of the three victims of the fire accident.