LAST week’s two fire outbreaks, first at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and then at Marriott Hotel, are relatively minor incidents in comparison to two other previous fires in the capital, viz., the fire that destroyed the entire Assembly Hall of the Parliament Building in November 1993, and the fire that gutted almost the entire 16-storey Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat in January 2002.

(Another major fire, but of a somewhat different nature, was the Ojheri camp fire in April 1988 which killed and injured many people in the twin cities).

In many countries, important laws and amendments regarding fire safety and protection usually result from some major fire incident. But neither the National Assembly fire nor the Shaheed- i-Millat Secretariat fire has been able to gear us into revamping our fire-fighting service or more important, into producing a concrete law on the codes and standards of fire protection in buildings.

Fortunately both the National Assembly and the Shaheed-i- Millat fires did not cause any death or injury, mainly because both incidents occurred when the buildings were unoccupied, the former on a public holiday and the latter late in the evening. Are we waiting for a more horrific fire accident to happen - like one in which many people are trapped and burnt in a multi-storey apartment or hotel - before we will take necessary action?

Many other devastating fire incidents have also occurred in Lahore and Karachi, particularly in high-rise apartments, shopping/commercial complexes and factories. Yet efforts to devise a law on fire safety and implement this in order to prevent the frequent outbreaks of fire have been painfully slow.

A major breakthrough in fire protection was made in March 2002 when an Emergency Services Ordinance was drafted with the help of the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan, a non- governmental organization formed in 1999 by fire protection professionals in the private and public sector.

The ordinance was to provide for the establishment of a new provincial government service called the Rescue and Fire Service (RFS), which was basically an amalgamation of the existing Civil Defence Department and the Fire Brigade. The RFS was to be headed by a director-general at the federal level.

The ordinance was also to provide for the setting up of a new federal Pakistan Emergency and Fire Council, which was to be tasked with formulating and then implementing - through the RFS - a code of rules, regulations and specifications regarding the safety of life and property from fires, explosions and other hazardous materials (to be known as the Pakistan Emergency and Fire Code).

The RFS was also mandated to inspect any building or premises for hazardous conditions as set forth in the Pakistan Emergency and Fire Code, as well as to investigate the cause, origin and circumstances of all fires and explosions.

It has been over four years since the ordinance was drafted, but nothing much appears to have materialized. What we only have so far are repeated reports in the press about intentions to upgrade the country’s fire brigade in terms of equipment, manpower and training.

In May 2005, for example, it was reported that the Civil Defence Department had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a foreign agency to enhance its fire-fighting capability. In December 2005 it was reported that in accordance with this MoU, 320 well equipped, fire and rescue stations will be established throughout the country in the next three years, costing US$500 million.

Meanwhile, there have also been reports that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) will be establishing four new fire stations in Islamabad (April 2005), that it has signed an agreement with a foreign company to provide new fire-fighting equipment worth Rs600 million (September 2005), and that this long-awaited modernization project of the capital’s fire brigade would soon get official approval (April 2006).

Even if these projects do materialize into a well-trained and well-equipped fire-fighting service, this only constitutes a long-delayed improvement of the second line of defence against the loss of property and lives through fires. The first line of defence against fires, which is prevention, seems to have been totally neglected and ignored.

According to the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan, only some private concerns and sensitive organizations in Pakistan follow the internationally practised regulations and bindings on fire safety. The result of the non-existence of a proper Fire Act is that most buildings in Pakistan are being built without the requisite levels of fire safety, and organizations and industries are being run without necessary precautions and regard to the prevention of fire.

It does not take a fire-fighting professional to realize that many fires in Pakistan, and thus economic losses, could have been prevented and lives saved if buildings were equipped with internationally recognized fire-fighting systems, which most of our buildings lack. More important than earthquake-proof building codes, we need to have fire prevention guidelines and fire safety regulations in our national building codes.

These regulations ought to make it binding for buildings, especially educational institutions and high-rise buildings, to have fire exits, fire escapes, smoke detectors, fire detectors or fire-fighting systems (e.g., automatic fire alarm, automatic fire extinguishing/hydrant system, automatic smoke extraction/exhaust system, etc.), etc.

According to a 2005 report in Dawn, more than 95 per cent of the 14,000 multi-storey buildings in Lahore city are not fire- safe because of defective designing and the absence of fire control arrangements. Most of these buildings are said to have only a single opening for entrance and exit, and are not equipped with any equipment at all for extinguishing fires.

Whatever fire-protection regulations that exist are blatantly ignored and disregarded by concerned officials. For example, it has been reported that the basic fire-prevention guidelines for buildings as laid down in the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations 2002, which include installation of an interior fire alarm system, the existence of fire exits, etc., are apparently not being followed or implemented.

Thus, apart from fire safety codes, we need greater awareness not only among the masses but in the government as well, about the importance of adopting preventive measures to minimize fire incidents and ensure safe handling of hazardous materials.

Without awareness, even the most modern fire-alarm and fire- extinguishing systems fitted into a building will be rendered useless when a fire breaks out. Without awareness, an ordinary seemingly harmless electrical device like a fluorescent tubelight can become a fire monster. A classic example of this is the 1993 fire in the National Assembly.

According to the report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Fire Incident in the Parliament House (which pinned responsibility for the fire on nine CDA officials including the then CDA chairman and three officials from the National Assembly Secretariat), the Parliament Building in Islamabad is a modern building fitted with a sophisticated automatic fire alarm system.

But for some reason - one person claimed it was due to a false alarm triggered off during an earlier Assembly session, others said that it was due to too many false alarms triggered off by smoking - the automatic fire alarm system had been turned off and modified into a manual system that was supposed to be manned round-the-clock in three shifts by three CDA electricians.

In actual fact, it was only manned by two attendants in two shifts, which were not even covered regularly whenever one of the two went on leave or was absent.

The inquiry ruled out arson or sabotage, and found that the fire was started by sparks from one of the over 300 overheated fluorescent tubelights in the Assembly Hall (the tubelights had apparently not been switched off at all since the opening of the Assembly Hall in 1986!). On the day of the fire - it was a public holiday - the fire alarm operation room was unmanned and locked, and the fire was undetected until many hours later.

Adherence to fire safety regulations would require that the electrical system and the fire fighting equipment within all buildings be regularly inspected to determine their efficiency. In addition, all buildings should have a fire evacuation plan and occasional fire drills to build awareness in people about fire safety.

In other countries, e.g., the US, UK, and India, fire engineering is a career by itself. Universities in these countries have separate departments of fire prevention engineering or departments of fire protection engineering. In Oman, there is even a Fire Safety Engineering College. It is high time we follow in the footsteps of these countries in promoting fire safety.

ISLAMABAD: But for the shock impact in the information ministry, the much-vaunted cabinet shake-up would have been a non-event. The prime minister shuffled portfolios of 19 among the army of ministers, most of whom hardly have any identity of their own. Their presence is felt only by the display of the perks and privileges they enjoy or when some of them add to the glitter of VVIP entourages.

The prime minister was expected to avoid filling some cabinet vacancies caused by the senate elections. Instead, he has further improved on his own record of presiding over the largest cabinet in Pakistan’s history by adding more deadweight to the already unwieldy conglomerate. We now have 38 full ministers, apart from the truckload of junior ministers, a horde of advisers, technocrats enjoying status of ministers, parliamentary secretaries and chairmen of standing committees.

Except for dislodging Shaikh Rashid, the PM can hardly be accused of any role in the present selection which is as much peripheral as it was two years ago. At that time he had put on a brave face to cover up his helplessness by declaring, in his peculiar phrase: “I will take their class” and give them targets and monitor performance quarterly. As it is, nothing of the sort happened and not a single minister was dropped nor did performance guide any minister’s retention. The cosmetic changes in their portfolios are termed as an effort “to enhance performance”. Divisions like culture, youth, women’s development, sports and tourism have been split to accommodate four full ministers. New ministries for political affairs, provincial coordination and environment have been created.

A journalist had recently revealed that, invisible privileges apart, a minister costs this poor nation about Rs350,000 a month. The great extravaganza is being staged under the tutelage of a president who once spoke of good governance and never tires of criticising politicians for their ‘loot and plunder’ and a premier with a corporate background that teaches frugal habits. He once advised Nawaz Sharif to get out of huge mansions like the PM’s House and Governor’s Houses and set an example of austere and simple living.

Early on, when novices (mostly scions of feudal families) became ministers without ever a day of experience in practical politics, President Musharraf explained it as injection of new blood in the body politic. Hardly has any of them ever uttered a single word in the assembly or performed any deed for the people to notice. The nurturing in the nursery continues.

It has been claimed that the changes have been made with an eye on the upcoming elections. This may be only partially true. No one has been off-loaded for fear of a political backlash. The induction of Salim Saifullah and the movement up the ladder of Amir Muqam is designed to regain the political initiative in the NWFP. The two, however, have no compatibility as was evident in the Peshawar convention. While the Saifullahs family has come out of the political wilderness after an unusually long exclusion, Jamaat renegade Amir Muqam remains an outsider in the PML whose NWFP chapter he now heads.

Overall, the underlying consideration has been to appease as many people as possible. But this runs the risk of alienating a disgruntled mass of left-out legislators in a party where everybody caters to his individual interests while remain in tied to the apron string of military-led power. The changes once again bear the stamp of the Chaudhris of Gujrat on whom the president appears to be increasingly leaning for his political strength. Their aversion to the PPP-Patriots is also fully reflected, be it the induction of renegade Patriot Khalid Lund or another blow to their arch antagonist in Punjab, Faisal Saleh Hayat, who rolls down to the insignificant environment ministry. Mr Lund’s inclusion and Chaudhry Shujaat’s declaration that anybody joining the PML would be given a place of honour is an ominous signal to this group of PPP deserters and now itself faces more desertions and possible extinction in not too distant a future.

Shaikh Rashid Ahmed now feels aggrieved. He had antagonised virtually everybody in the cabinet, the party and national politics by his brash, abrasive style and a diction that touches the fringes of vulgarity. He is no doubt a most seasoned politician in the coalition which needs his services in the elections. But he remained a loner and an odd man out in the entire set-up, because of his plebeian background in an elitist structure, a penchant for talking big and an irresistible urge for self-projection. Relying too much on his support in the presidency, he had alienated everybody else, including the PM and the PML chief.

Despite his present fall from grace, he remains an unflappable character. One is reminded of Maulana Kausar Niazi, who was shifted by Z.A. Bhutto in similar circumstances from the high-profile information ministry to religious affairs. In no time Niazi turned the religious affairs ministry into one of most visible and active portfolios. Rashid’s penchant to stay in the limelight is evident from his meeting with the president within 48 hours of the change during which he announced a super railway track linking China. On the very first day he extended a whopping 80% concession to journalists in railway travel without any cogent reason. It improves upon the 50 per cent they had in the 1980s before one of Rashid’s predecessors, Gen Saeed Qadir, terminated it out of ire on being asked an awkward question by a newsman.