Fire a perfect recipe in hotels, eateries

Surat: There are 250 hotels and 2,500 restaurants in the city, but except for a few, others have failed to conduct fire safety audits in their premises regularly. No major fire incident has occurred in these hotels in the past five years, but if it ever happens, not many would be able to tackle the emergency situation.
There is a cluster of 30 hotels in small complexes near Surat railway station. Each has rooms between 15 to 35 for guests. It is mandatory for a small-sized hotels to have double entry and exit routes, but most don’t have these facilities. “These hotels have fire safety equipment, but it is not enough to fight a massive fire. None of these hotels have ever conducted fire safety audit. They don’t have trained firefighting personnel either,” said Vasant Parikh, chief fire officer, Surat Municipal Corporation.

Many hotels have their conference and dining rooms located in the basements. These places don’t have any ventilation and proper passages. It would be very difficult to evacuate people during fire or any other emergency from these places. “Proper escape routes and ventilation are very important,” Parikh added.

“Fire & Emergency Services has no authority to close such facilities. We need to work with town planning department in this regard,” a fire officer said.

South Gujarat Hotels and Restaurants Association (SHARA) vice-president Sanat Reliya said, “Most of the hotels have fire safety licence. However, attention needs to be paid by them to areas like kitchen.”