The number of fires in Ho Chi Minh City increased 50 percent compared to last two years, said HCMC fire fighting force at a June 29 meeting to review its task in two years of implementation aiming to prevent fires in the city.
According to fire fighting force, from 2014, the city has had 1,467 cases killing 25 people & 76 people injured; total property loss worth VND637 billion (US$28,590,664). Compared to last two years, the number of fire increased by 49 percent with more 483 cases of fire. The major cause of fire is electricity fault. Additionally, since 2014, the city has had 11 cases of explosion claiming the lives of ten people, wounding 16 people and estimated property loss around VND160 million.
Noticeably, among 1,467 cases from 2014, 21 is big flame killing 16 people, wounding four people and property loss around VND600 billion. Worse, the fire engulfing Van Thanh Mattress Company in Cu Chi District reported to damage VND85 billion (US$3,815,080).
Deputy Chief of Fire Fighter station in HCMC Colonel Tran Thanh Chau said that it is likely to have more fires and explosions in the city because fire fighting force in several districts can not meet the demand and state management is not tightened. In addition, the document to guide fire fighting is not enough and hard to understand. Worst, people’s awareness of fire regulation is low.
According to Deputy Head of Fire Fighting Department and Rescue under the Ministry of Public Security Major General Do Minh Dung, to prevent big fire, all agencies should pay more attention to fire fighting task and increase supervision.
Deputy Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Huynh Cach Mang ordered the city fire fighting force and district people’s committees and related agencies to adopt measures against fire in a bid to curb big fire outbreaks causing serious consequences.
The task must be inspection and issuance of fine to producer violators in the export processing zones and industrial parks. To effectively control the fire outbreak, related agencies and district authorities should partake in supervision. Furthermore, it needs to set up a fire fighting force in each residential block & have a mobile fire fighting force in a residential section to effective extinguish flame outbreak.
