Fire fighters battle one of the destructive factory fires in Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone on August 15.

FIRE prevention at industrial zones was the hot topic of discussion at a recent seminar led by experts from the Department of Fire Services.

U Zaw Win, director of the national Department of Fire Service, said the majority of the factories lack sufficient water storage tanks, fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.

Additional problems include laneways in the zones too narrow for fire engines to pass through, while some factories do not even have the department’s telephone number.

He recommended that businesses set aside five percent of their total investment for fire prevention.

Countrywide, the department is called out to 1300 fires every year and one-third of these occur in Yangon, U Zaw Win said.

He said the costs of the fires in Yangon dwarfed those from elsewhere in the country because they often involved factories within industrial zones.

“When fires break out in industrial zones, especially foreign direct investment (FDI) factories that tend to be extremely large, the cost of the damage is much higher than in other places,” said U Aung Kyaw Myint, chief of the Yangon Division Fire Brigade.

Yangon has about 2500 factories in its industrial zones.

“In 2007 three fires have already broken out in the Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone, which is the biggest zone in Myanmar,” he said.

Factories damaged by these fires have included the Friendship garment factory, Chue footwear factory and Shwe Mi plastic factory, U Aung Kyaw Myint said.

Fires in industrial zones, he said, destroy not only the factories themselves but also finished products, raw materials and expensive imported machinery.

“Moreover, it’s a tall and expensive order to rebuild a factory these days,” he said.

In an enterprising move aimed at reducing fire response times – which is usually at least 30 minutes – the department is manufacturing fire engines to sell to factories, U Zaw Win said.

This is the first time that fire engines will be offered for sale to the private sector.

The actual engines will be made by the department’s engineers and will hold 1200 gallons of water.

“We will deliver each engine one month after we receive an order,” said U Aung Kyaw Myint, adding that each one will cost K13.4 million.

The engines will also be offered to individual townships across the country and 58 of the nation’s 314 townships do not have a fire engine at all. U Aung Kyaw Myint said these engines have been designed with these towns in mind but warned that priority will be given to industrial zones when it comes to their sale.