Fire Haunting

The motionless bodies on stretchers covered in white cloth, the ambulance sirens blaring and rushing away in the night, the heartbreaking cries of relatives, all combined to haunt me when I arrived at the scene of the fire on Tran Thai Tong Street.

7, then 10, then 13 are the numbers of victims who died in the fire announced by the authorities.

That scene reminded me of 2012, when I myself experienced a major fire. Thinking back now, I still feel shocked.

At that time, I owned a kindergarten located in two newly built high-rise buildings. When I rented, the electricity and water system were not completed, especially the fire protection system was very rudimentary and outdated. Those were two buildings of a state unit for students to rent, so it seemed that the investor did not care much about the quality of the equipment.

Because of the children, in addition to the modern kitchen, I also suggested installing a separate fire alarm system for the school, and continuously proactively invited the fire police to train teachers and staff. These actions later helped many people escape.

One afternoon in May 2012, the school’s private fire alarm system suddenly went off when there was a sign of smoke in the building’s shared electrical box. Immediately, we, as trained, moved 150 children out of the building via the stairs and notified the general security of the area. At that time, many people around looked at us with suspicion, because the building’s public fire alarm system was completely silent. Even when we pressed the button manually, the system did not seem to work. Hundreds of residents of the entire high-rise building were completely unaware of the impending disaster.

After evacuating all the students, we returned with the security guard and ran to each room in the 21-story building to call for everyone to evacuate. At this time, smoke began to billow from the electrical pipes, and people ran and cried as they ran. Dozens of students who did not have time to escape rushed out of the stairs to the balcony and jumped to the roof of the lower floor. The scene was extremely chaotic. It took a long time for the fire department to arrive. Fortunately, the incident only caused property damage and no casualties.

Without equipping yourself with knowledge about fire prevention, plus a little luck, the damage will not stop at material.

The fire at several karaoke restaurants on Tran Thai Tong Street will not be the first and will not be the last. Just a short time ago, there was also a fire at a karaoke restaurant on Nguyen Khang Street.

Fire and explosion are always present risks in karaoke restaurants - where many highly flammable items are used such as foam soundproof walls and ceilings, sofas and chairs; not to mention the huge advertising signs covering the facades of the houses with a tangled system of carelessly connected electrical wires. The row houses on the street, which were already sealed on three sides, now have their facades covered as well. All of this leads to the possibility of fire and explosion at any time. And fire and explosion will certainly cause serious damage.

The story at the karaoke bar on Tran Thai Tong Street became even more heartbreaking when this establishment had not been licensed for fire safety and did not have a business registration certificate. Another question is: who is responsible for letting this situation happen?

Someone will have to take responsibility for the incident. But disasters and losses will continue to occur if people only assign responsibility for each individual incident without considering and resolving the common reality that, for stories like this to happen, there is no such thing as “responsibility” at many levels.

According to VNE