Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence largely refrained from taking punitive action against anyone despite knowing that fire safety rule violations were rampant across the country, including in the capital.

Fire inspections in 24,193 buildings over a period of four years until December 2023 found fire risk in almost one of every three buildings, according to official data.

But no pragmatic action was taken for being non-compliant with the fire law during the period.

Fire service data showed that 7,081 buildings were at risk of fire, including 1,803 buildings at high risk of fire incidents.

The fire service limited its activities to serving cautionary notices that apparently did not yield any results.

In the building that went up in flames on Bayley Road, killing 46 people on February 29, there was at least one shop that received at least three cautionary notices from the fire service about which the shop did not care at all.

The Fire Prevention and Extinguishing Act, 2003, empowered only fire officials to file cases against fire violators.

The law stipulated three years imprisonment and a fine for the law violator and confiscating goods if it was proved that a business was running without a fire safety licence.

Fire officials can take a fire safety violator to court without serving any notice.

Fire service officials claimed that inspectors felt discouraged from filing cases as they take a long time to dispose of.

Fire Service deputy assistant director Shahjahan Shikder said that instead of filing cases, the fire service prioritises mobile court operations, which have a meaningful impact, but the problem was the crisis of magistrates.

The fire service has no enforcement mechanism with magistrates. They request deputy commissioners for magistrates and conduct limited mobile courts.

Fire service data showed that in the past four years, they assisted mobile courts in 175 buildings and realised Tk 28 lakh in fines.

‘A list of risky buildings is on the cards. We will file a case against them soon,’ he said.

Fire service data showed that only seven per cent of buildings that take a fire safety plan from them implement the plan, and the rest deviate.

Officials said that thousands of others don’t even  come to the fire service but build their establishments without a safety plan.

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professor and disaster expert Maksud Helali said that the fire service could not deny responsibility for city fires that caused deaths and the loss of properties.

The agency makes frantic efforts to douse fire and rescue but does hardly anything pragmatic to prevent fire, he said.

‘Fire service cannot transfer responsibility by issuing a notice to rule violators,’ he said.

The fire service director of operations and maintenance, Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury, said that the fire act did not give them the right to shut down any establishment, even knowing the fire risks of buildings.

‘What the fire service can do is file cases or help magistrates if any agency conducts them,’ he explained.

Maksud Helali said that the fire act empowered the DG enough to ensure fire safety, but they don’t use the power and prefer shortcuts.

He said that the political commitment of the government was also important for making the agencies vibrant.

Experts said that the fire service should take the highest punitive action against law violators to stop the deaths of people in fires.

Some fire service officials, on condition of anonymity, said that they feel discouraged from filing cases after the home ministry in 2018 suspended the Fire Prevention and Extinguishing Rules 2014 amid protests from different quarters, mostly garment factory owners.

According to the rules, if a multi-storey commercial building is constructed without fire clearance or breaks the conditions mentioned in the clearance, a case can be filed against errant building

owners.

Asked about the suspension of the rules, the home ministry’s security services division additional secretary, Mosammat Shahanara Khatun, said that the government suspended it because it believed some amendments to the rules were needed.

Former director general of fire service and Risk and Performance Management Ltd managing director Ali Ahmed Khan said that the agency must have an enforcement wing and its own magistrate to conduct a drive against law violators.

Urban Planner Adil Mohammad Khan observed that after every major fire incident, all agencies deny responsibility and blame each other.

Fire service statistics showed that at least 102 people were killed and 281 others sustained burn injuries in 27,624 fire incidents across the country in 2023.

According to the Fire Service statistics, most of the fire incidents originated from electric short circuits, burning cigarettes, oven, and leakage of gas pipelines.

As per statistics, the estimated loss caused by the fire in 2023 was approximately Tk792 crore.