Public Buildings: FG Frowns at Abuse of Fire Safety Code
- By Henry Iortim
- Published February 8th, 2010
- News
- Unrated
THE Federal Fire Service would soon launch a nationwide onslaught on owners of public buildings that have grossly abused the required fire safety standard. The move is part of efforts aimed at checking the threat to life and properties running into billions of naira as a result of the persistent fire out breaks that raze down markets, shopping plazas and other public buildings across the country.
Experts have noted that most fire outbreaks arose in places with high concentration of magnificent buildings with extremely poor fire safety standards. This, they contended, has contributed to colossal loses incurred by business operators to inferno during fire accidents. This development, they said, necessitated the immediate call on developers of buildings to factor safety compliances in their construction sites to forestall occurrences.
In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja alone, about N1.4 billion cash is saved from fire out breaks in homes while property worth N176.4 billion is lost to fire accidents annually.
Owners of massive structures dedicated to diverse business operations have insisted that the fire service must live up to the challenge of the current realities and put out fires successfully any where such accident is noticed.
According to them, the service men must embark on serious sensitization of citizens for them to appreciate the extent of damage fire could be to lives and businesses barely struggling to survive under the harsh economic situation.
Only recently Olusegun James Okebiorun, comptroller-general of the Federal Fire Service, warned that the service would decisively deal with perpetrators of bush burning and those involved in indiscriminate setting of fire in both residential and strategic commercial areas thereby endangering properties and lives.
Okebiorun, who sounded the warning through Julius Opetusin, head of operation, Federal Fire Service, lamented that research had proven that more than half of bush burning throughout Nigeria is deliberately lit, this has resulted to damages worth billions of naira annually.
He therefore advised citizens to immediately cut grasses about 10 to 20 metres round their surroundings as a measure to avert the escalation of fire around their buildings. He warned those that smoke cigarette to cultivate the use of ash trays rather that throwing cigarette stubs indiscriminately which are very serious agents of fire disaster just as he advised appropriate management of electrical appliances.
Experts have noted that most fire outbreaks arose in places with high concentration of magnificent buildings with extremely poor fire safety standards. This, they contended, has contributed to colossal loses incurred by business operators to inferno during fire accidents. This development, they said, necessitated the immediate call on developers of buildings to factor safety compliances in their construction sites to forestall occurrences.
In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja alone, about N1.4 billion cash is saved from fire out breaks in homes while property worth N176.4 billion is lost to fire accidents annually.
Owners of massive structures dedicated to diverse business operations have insisted that the fire service must live up to the challenge of the current realities and put out fires successfully any where such accident is noticed.
According to them, the service men must embark on serious sensitization of citizens for them to appreciate the extent of damage fire could be to lives and businesses barely struggling to survive under the harsh economic situation.
Only recently Olusegun James Okebiorun, comptroller-general of the Federal Fire Service, warned that the service would decisively deal with perpetrators of bush burning and those involved in indiscriminate setting of fire in both residential and strategic commercial areas thereby endangering properties and lives.
Okebiorun, who sounded the warning through Julius Opetusin, head of operation, Federal Fire Service, lamented that research had proven that more than half of bush burning throughout Nigeria is deliberately lit, this has resulted to damages worth billions of naira annually.
He therefore advised citizens to immediately cut grasses about 10 to 20 metres round their surroundings as a measure to avert the escalation of fire around their buildings. He warned those that smoke cigarette to cultivate the use of ash trays rather that throwing cigarette stubs indiscriminately which are very serious agents of fire disaster just as he advised appropriate management of electrical appliances.
