Finally, moves afoot to draft fire safety plan for commercial hubs

HENNAI: Four months after a disastrous fire that gutted a multi-storeyed textile showroom in busy T Nagar exposed poor fire safety management at congested commercial areas in the city, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) is looking to prepare a detailed project report on a comprehensive plan for such commercial areas that attract thousands every day.

The focus will be on the central business districts (CBDs), the main business and commercial areas in a city that generates much of its revenue and has high density of population involved in the activities. The plan is also to pay similar attention to continuous building areas (CBAs) in Chennai Metropolitan Area.
Sources said CMDA is to request a consultant to prepare the detailed project report on ‘Comprehensive Fire Safety Management Plan’ for select CBDs and CBAs in Chennai Metropolitan Area’ in the next four months.

The consultant will be given the task of identifying those CBDs and CBAs that require high priority attention in terms of vulnerability to fire disasters. This will be done in a phased manner, starting with 10 clusters that can be taken up in the first phase.

The consultant will have to review fire incidents in each cluster in the last 15 years with reference to fire location, ignition source, fire spread area and extent of damage to property and people. It will also have to look at the fire suppression response (number and location of responding fire brigades, time needed for arrival, suppression, clean up) to identify business clusters as vulnerable.

The plan is also to identify stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in the implementation and monitoring of fire safety plans, and also those involved in the response initiatives during fire disasters.

The consultant will also study the fire safety management plans of other cities in the country and abroad in order to identify and emulate best practices. The idea is to develop a fire safety module that can be replicated with slight modifications in any CBD or CBA in Tamil Nadu.

The move to have fire safety management in core business areas of the city comes in the wake of a major fire that gutted Chennai Silks building in busy T Nagar area on May 31. It exposed the lack of safety measures to prevent a fire and the inability to control it, which could have caused substantial loss of lives had it happened during the peak hours.

The fire risk assessment will be done based on the development of modern fire research, risk assessment and risk management, in an effort to reduce the risk and threats from a fire accident.