JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The fire that broke out at the Bellevue Cinere shopping center and apartment in Depok, West Java, on Wednesday (4/10) night, is a reminder about the importance of improving public awareness on the safety and security of high-rises, houses and office buildings. Smoke was still visible as of Thursday afternoon, more than 15 hours after the fire broke out.
Depok Fire and Rescue Department chief Yayan Ariyanto said the fire was caused by a short circuit in the generator room. The fire destroyed all the cables in the room, an adjacent restaurant and a basement-level supermarket. “Further investigation is needed to determine a more accurate cause of the fire,” said Yayan.
The fire safety system in the apartment complex and shopping center were in good condition. “The safety system was last checked on Aug. 25, 2017. There is also a pool of 200 cubic meters,” said Yayan. The agency needed a ladder car and a special mobile ventilation unit to fight the fire effectively.
The thick smoke from the fire trapped eight residents in their apartments on the 12th, 18th and 19th floors. Trapped inside for seven hours, the occupants were evacuated one by one by a rescue team on Thursday at 3:30 a.m. Limo Police chief Adj. Comr. Muhammad Iskandar said that the evacuation was conducted by a joint team consisting of personnel from the Depok fire department, the South Jakarta fire department and the National Search and Rescue Agency.
Slow response
In the morning, several apartment residents and owners of retail outlets came to observe the fire from outside, concerned about the state of their property. Caroline, 37, a private employee who lives at the Bellevue apartment, along with her husband, carried down suitcases from their 11th-floor unit by the emergency staircase. Caroline and her husband plan to stay at a hotel while waiting for information on their apartment.
Catherine, 42, the owner of a furniture store in Bellevue Mall, complained about the slow response from the apartment and mall management when the fire started. The sprinklers and hydrants didn’t function. Furthermore, residents and shop owners were not notified about the fire on the premises.
“I only found out when there was smoke. At first, there was a burnt smell, and then smoke appeared. It turned out that the Hypermart on the floor below was on fire. The smoke filled the mall,” she said.
The fire destroyed Catherine’s goods as her ground-floor outlet was engulfed by flames. She incurred losses of about Rp 900 million. She hoped that the mall management would compensate her losses.
Evacuating the complex was made difficult by the thick smoke that filled the building. As of 2:40 a.m. on Thursday, firefighters could only reach the 10th floor. Whenever they were about to proceed to the 11th floor, their oxygen supply ran out and they were forced to go back down to refill their oxygen tanks. It takes 15-20 minutes to refill one tank.
They broke the glass of every window in the corridors of every floor to ventilate the smoke that filled the building. They were finally able to reach the 19th and 20th floors by 4:00 a.m.
Electrical installations
Electrical installations area common fire hazard for apartments. In South Jakarta in 2016, the breaker panels at two apartments went up in flames.
South Jakarta Fire Mitigation and Rescue Agency head Irwan said that the fire at the Gandaria Heights and Parama apartments was caused by a spark that started in their breaker panels. In apartments, breaker panels are designed as one channel from the bottom to the top,so if a panel catches fire, the fire will spread all the way to the top.
The management of high-rise buildings needs to design a safer panel board and conduct routine maintenance of the electrical system. The management also needs to provide more sophisticated firefighting equipment and improve its evacuation facilities, including having a staircase that reaches the top of the building. Current firefighting ladders are only 90 meters high, equivalent to about 20 floors.