Converting houses into kiosks and the risk of fire and explosion

Increase in house fires

Since the beginning of the year, especially in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, there have been continuous house fires near the street at night, killing many people in each house, shocking public opinion. Specifically, a house fire in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City on January 21, 2021 killed 5 people in one family.

Then, on March 30, at house number 899 Nguyen Thi Dinh street, Cat Lai ward, Thu Duc city, Ho Chi Minh city, 6 people died. Most recently, on April 4, at Ton Duc Thang street, Dong Da district, Hanoi, a house fire occurred, killing 4 people, including a pregnant woman, all from the same family.

Typical fires that have caused many deaths have shocked public opinion recently. According to the representative of the Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Department (PCCC), Nghe An Provincial Police, the simple cause is thehouses for rent for businessThe main exit was blocked by flammable materials and could not be escaped forward; there was no emergency exit behind or above, so smoke suffocation led to death.

Some business store fires in Nghe An. Photo: PV

Statistics from the Fire Police Department, Ministry of Public Security show that since the beginning of 2021, there have been nearly 720 fires nationwide, of which more than half (336) were house fires. The number of house fires, especially houses rented for business, causing many deaths has increased, so the Department advised the Minister to issue Directive No. 10/CT dated January 12, 2021 and in early April 2021 organized an online conference to urge and remind localities to strengthen propaganda and inspection of fire prevention and fighting regulations.

According to the representative of the Fire Police Department, Provincial Police, the large house fires in the localities are a warning for Nghe An because our province has a high risk of fire and explosion but the infrastructure and fire fighting equipment are limited so we cannot be subjective. In fact, in recent years, besides the casesfire in factoryIn industrial parks or traditional markets, fires often occur at some business stalls along Tran Phu or Le Loi streets in Vinh City. Although the number of deaths is low, the damage to property is quite large.
According to the advice of the Provincial Fire Police Department, we have surveyed the streets and found that the situation of people converting houses along the street to do business in Vinh City and towns and townships is becoming more and more popular. Specifically, on streets such as Tran Phu, Nguyen Van Cu, Ha Huy Tap, Le Loi (Vinh City) or the central roads of the districts, most of the first floor stalls are rented for business while the facades on the 2nd and 3rd floors are covered with advertising signs, the exposed parts, if any, are reinforced with large steel frames, as sturdy as tiger cages...

Installing large steel frames makes it difficult to escape and rescue in case of fire. Photo: Quang An

The Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Team of Vinh City Police said: Up to 50% of the streets with residential houses, along the road, have been renovated and converted to renting out business stalls, in which streets such as Tran Phu, Le Loi, Nguyen Van Cu have the highest density of business rentals up to 80-90%, the entrances inside are very small. The situation is similar in the district towns when most of the first floor houses along the road are rented out or used for business, while people live and work on the upper floors.

Factories or shops with solid iron cages make it difficult to carry out fire fighting and rescue plans, and firefighters have to spend a lot of time to demolish them. If victims are not rescued in time, the chance of survival is very small…

Captain Nguyen The Song - Captain of Fire Fighting Team No. 1, Vinh City Area said.

Risk mitigation solutions

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Khanh Thach - Head of the Fire Prevention Team, Fire Police Department, Nghe An Provincial Police said: Learning from the fire incidents in other provinces shows that it is time to rectify and tighten state management in this field.

According to the provisions of the Law, residential houses have different and lower fire safety requirements than those in factories, warehouses, and business booths. Factories and business booths contain many flammable materials, and when a fire breaks out, it will spread quickly and strongly, so management conditions must be stricter and more stringent. Therefore, when factories and warehouses change their functions, they must redo their records so that the competent authorities can re-approve the fire safety plan.

Fire at a large furniture factory in Hoang Mai town. Photo: Chu Minh

Due to business needs, the renovation and conversion of residential houses into business houses is taking place quite commonly and openly, but the management requirements for fire prevention and fighting for this work are still inadequate and there are no appropriate solutions. In the face of the above situation, on the one hand, the Public Security sector is advising the Provincial People's Committee to conduct inspections and reviews of fire prevention and fighting safety work, including checking and grasping the current situation of water at fire hydrants, the situation of houses on the street that are renovated and converted to business rental; paying attention to rental booths withhigh risk of fire and explosionsuch as storing foam cushions, plastic items, wooden items... to remind each facility owner to have measures to ensure and handle on-site when a fire occurs.

In addition, the hot summer is approaching and the demand for electricity is increasing, so it is necessary to launch a peak period of propaganda on fire prevention and fighting, including recommendations to remind people and business owners not to stay at night and if they stay, they must have warning and escape measures to prevent fire and explosion.
Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Khanh Thach - Head of the Fire Prevention Team added: The characteristic of residential houses that are converted to rentals is that they often have quite tight iron fences, and if there is an emergency exit, they also use very sturdy locks. When doing this, the owners or tenants do not think about the fire situation, so they leave the keys very carelessly and are difficult to find. Therefore, to escape as quickly as possible, there must be a convention to leave the keys in the most accessible place in case of an emergency so that anyone can open it without dropping it. In recent fires, people died because they could not reach the emergency exit.

Gathering goods near electrical equipment and heat-generating equipment poses a high risk of fire. Photo: Quang An

Recent inspections show that stall owners are still quite subjective when they think that fires are unlikely to happen and if they do happen, they will happen in factories and stalls in the market, not in their own homes. For the above reason, some stall owners selling plastic and wooden products on Tran Phu and Phan Dinh Phung streets (Vinh City) when being inspected and reminded by the inspection team to add fire-fighting equipment at their stalls, all make excuses to forget and avoid it.

Representative of Fire Prevention Team, Vinh City Police said

From the above reality, through inspection, on the one hand, the authorities need to strengthen propaganda and remind to arrange stalls to limit the risk of fire, arrange separate electricity meters so that when business hours are over, the electricity can be checked and turned off as required in the markets; on the other hand, the working groups and local authorities must also strictly punish homeowners and rental establishments that do not strictly comply with fire prevention regulations at the business premises. Require owners of stalls and business establishments that rent houses to equip with initial fire fighting equipment; at the same time, check the operation of fire fighting equipment, and put out fires as soon as the fire starts...