Biratnagar ill-equipped in fire fighting

By Navaraj Kattel,Rangeli, Dec. 16:Four persons died in a fire at a warehouse of recyclable items along the Saatghumti Road in Ward No. 7 of Biratnagar Metropolitan City (BMC) on December 6. Two injured in the incident are still receiving treatment. 

The fire incident raised many concerns, both on the authority and public levels. While the public argued that the fire engines did not arrive in time and that the water tankers got emptied in an instant without extinguishing the fire completely, the stakeholders argued that they did their best with the available resources.

“The information about the fire was received from the Jain Bhawan at 2:09 pm. The fire engines of BMC reached the site in 10 minutes,” said Rajan Paudel, chief of the Biratnagar Metropolitan Police.

Addressing the concerns that the water of the tankers finished within minutes, Paudel said, “A fire truck’s tank always has full water when it is on standby. The fire engines that reached as the first response sprayed water from three pipes.”

According to Paudel, each fire truck can hold 5,000 litres of water, and it can be sprayed for up to 20-25 minutes through a single pipe. “Since there were people stuck inside the fire, three pipes were used from every fire truck arriving there to create a path and rescue the trapped individuals.”

Two people had died on the spot while four were rescued and rushed to hospital. Two of the rescued died during treatment. 

Several fire engines had arrived from the neighbouring local levels to assist in extinguishing the fire, which took hours. 

Three fire engines for Biratnagar

Biratnagar Metropolitan City currently has three fire engines in operation. One of them was recently gifted by the provincial government while two others are old and with poor water storing capacity. 

There are also two other old fire engines – one gifted years ago by the Japanese government and an old fire engine – parked by the BMC. They cannot be used.

Authorities informed that they had no plan to procure new fire engines, but were preparing to utilise the available resources at their best.

“Steps are being taken to utilise water tanks installed at Tinpaini, Devkota Chowk and Ward No. 12 as emergency water filling places for fire trucks. Earlier, the Mangadh Drinking Water Project was the only water-filling site,” said Paudel.

BMC is also searching for water sources. It is also planning to allocate chambers in different drinking water projects designated for fire engines. 

There were water boring systems in several places across Biratnagar in the earlier days for fire trucks to fill water. Now, they do not exist. 

While the BMC looks forward to utilising the three available fire engines with no additional infrastructure in the pipeline, authorities informed that they have started keeping fire engines on standby along the section from Pushpalal Chowk in Ward No. 3 to Ward No. 14. 

The first-response fire engine has been kept in Ward No. 14 to reach the prone areas at the earliest. Ward Nos. 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 are the most prone areas for fire in the BMC.

Biratnagar prone to fire

Biratnagar has been growing at a rapid pace. Once only a municipality, it has now become a metropolitan city and the capital city of Koshi Province. Development is visible in every sector – infrastructure, industry, health, education and trade. 

Yet, the city has failed to be equipped with sufficient fire-fighting resources. 

Equipment – wires, transformers and poles – transmitting electricity is also in a poor state in the city. The settlements in northern Biratnagar are filled with thatched houses. The people make fires throughout the day and night to fight cold. These often lead to unintentional fire incidents claiming life and destroying property. 

There are over 50,000 residential houses in the 76.99 square kilometres of BMC.  The population is increasing rapidly. There are two medical colleges, over two dozen specialised hospitals and dozens of educational institutions in the metropolis. All provincial offices, ministries and the Assembly House are also in the city.  

Large commercial buildings such as Bhat-Bhateni Supermarket and Central Mall, multi-storey hotels and complexes, and increased urbanisation have also posed a challenge to the BMC’s poor fire-fighting infrastructure. The number of factories and industries in Biratnagar is also large. 

Annually, people have been dying in fire incidents at the BMC. Property worth millions of rupees turns into ashes every year. Only in 2022, seven people died and six were injured in fire incidents throughout Biratnagar. Fire also gutted 79 houses and 42 sheds, and damaged property worth over Rs. 300 million last year.