Poor electrical fittings, children meddling, no escape… JEDDAH – Five days ago two children died when a fire broke out at their house in Mada'in Al-Fahd in south Jeddah. Fire officials, despite arriving promptly at the scene, found their bodies in a small bathroom, lifeless after being overcome by smoke. Investigators said they had taken refuge in the room from the flames engulfing the rest of the house. They had nowhere else to run. Six days ago a five-month-old baby girl and her nine-year-old sister died from smoke inhalation in a fire in Taif after being left alone in the house by relatives. Firefighters were forced to break down the locked door of a bedroom to reach the bodies. In Al-Khobar seven days ago two foreign residents died in a fire at a two-story residential block, and ten days ago three children were killed by fire in the Jeddah district of Karantina. Similar news stories are repeated almost every day in the press across the country, all too often mirroring another recent incident in which a foreign lady and her four children died in a fire in Bani Malik. Their home had no warning system, no means of ventilation and no fire escapes, trapping them inside the building with no chance of escape by the time they realized what was happening. School evacuations are also seemingly a weekly occurrence as air-conditioning units short circuit, and fires at shops, warehouses or open markets are a virtual guarantee on newspaper pages every single day. Many incidents occur at old buildings designed primarily with cost in mind and at a time when safety regulations – indeed, safety concerns – were minimal. A couple of months ago, however, a short circuit in an air-conditioning unit caused a fire at the 15-year-old design of the high rise Iskan apartments in Al-Sharifiya. The site was gutted and by sheer fortune there were no fatalities, but the incident exposed a wider issue that has been attracting the attention of various organizations who are calling for all buildings to be fitted by law with fire alarms, for safety regulations to be forcibly complied with, and for something to be done about the public's general lack of fire safety awareness. According to the Civil Defense General Department of Statistics (GDS), 25 percent of all Jeddah house fires are caused by short circuits. Khalid Al-Kinani lives in Al-Sharafiya in an Iskan apartment neighboring the one where the recent fire was witnessed. “It was terrifying, the smoke and flames poured out and we ran down the stairs,” Al-Kinani said. “Why did it happen? It's the family's failure to keep the apartment's electrical fittings in good working order. We live in constant fear. Even though the Civil Defense has put fire extinguishers in the flats, they haven't been around to check each apartment's safety facilities, and residents haven't been given any sort of training in how to prevent fires or what to do in the event of fire.” The second biggest cause of house fires in Jeddah, according to the GDS, is children meddling with electrics, who are responsible for 13 percent of blazes. After them comes arson, careless cooking, cigarettes, gas leaks, fire induced during maintenance work, and sparks from welding work. But the hazards are not limited merely to poorly-maintained electrical units, exposed wires, a lack of safety facilities such as extinguishers and alarms, and no fire escapes. “Some areas are extremely difficult to access for the Civil Defense,” says concerned citizen Abdulillah Al-Harbi. “They can't get their equipment in or use crane ladders. Petrol stations also seem to have no fire safety facilities.” Ibrahim Al-Amri remembers an incident where he lives in Quwaizah. “My neighbors had a fire caused by a gas canister. Lot of people don't know how to handle them properly and then don't know what to do when there's a fire.” A King Abdulaziz University nationwide survey for the Hijri year of 1422 (April 2001 to April 2002 approx.) shows that private homes accounted for 27.7 percent of all fires in the Kingdom, with the areas of highest population not surprisingly witnessing the highest number, Makkah topping the list with 28.5 percent of the total, followed by Riyadh with nearly 21 percent and the Eastern Province with just under 17 percent. The study made a series of recommendations, however, calling for a nationwide awareness campaign on the causes of fire in residential areas, the introduction of fire safety instruction into the school curriculum, penalties for failures to comply with safety standards such as maintenance checks on electrical wiring, the provision and maintenance of fire extinguishers, the compulsory installation of smoke detectors, and warning systems in kitchens and on gas units. Another recommendation was the removal of steel window gratings used to deter burglars, describing them as “significant fire hazards.”
