YET another fire in Dhaka that left six people dead and several others injured shows how the government has left the issue of fire safety unattended. The fire broke out on the second floor of a seven-storey building at Uttara on January 16, killing three members of a family and three other residents of the building. The Fire Service ad Civil Defence suspects that the fire may have been caused by the careless use of a room heater. Another fire broke out on the day at Kashimpur in Gazipur, which destroyed 26 houses in a colony of working-class people. Earlier in November, a devastating fire swept through Dhaka’s sprawling Karail slum, destroying some 1,500 shanties and leaving about 6,000 people without a roof. After each incident, all the authorities concerned iterate their commitment to improving fire safety standards and launch fire safety inspection drives, but they remain merely episodic. The staggering number of fire incidents proves that such episodic drives are ineffective in improving fire safety. In 2024, the Fire Service and Civil Defence recorded 26,659 incidents of fire in which 140 people, including two firefighters, died and 341 others became injured.
The reasons for the recurring fire are public knowledge. The fire service report says that of the total number of fires in 2024, 33.98 per cent were caused by electrical faults, 15.52 per cent by burning bits of cigarettes, 11.46 per cent by stoves, 2.84 per cent by children playing with fire and 0.45 per cent by gas cylinder explosions. There are building codes and fire safety rules in place, but they have never been strictly enforced. At the Green Cozy Cottage Shopping Mall on Bailey Road, where 46 people died in a fire in February 2024, there were safety rule violations in plain sight. The Fire Service and Civil Defence issued three notices to owners of the mall about the serious risks, but it did not take any legal steps. After the FR Tower fire in Dhaka, which killed 26 people, it was reported that the owner had extended the building upwards by five more storeys without approval and did not install a fire extinguishing system as required by the National Building Code. The main problem, therefore, lies in the failure to enforce fire safety regulations which is the manifestation of ineffective governance.
Public agencies should, therefore, move beyond episodic drives and commit to long-term enforcement to prevent such incidents from recurring. The government should ensure that no business or building operates outside legal and safety frameworks. This includes taking legal action against public officials who facilitate or ignore such violations. Without holding both non-compliant businesses or building owners and negligent authorities accountable, any talk of fire safety would remain rhetorical.
