Lawmaker urges revising fire regulations

Lawmaker urges revising fire regulations

Lawmaker Kwan Tsui Hang urged the government to revise the fire safety regulations in order to keep up with growing number of high-rises in Macau.

Kwana said buildings had already far exceeded the height that aerial ladder trucks could reach, adding that a number of large-scale integrated resorts have a massive confined space, making it more difficult to rescue people and extinguish fires.

The lawmaker referred to an incident last week at the One Central Residence construction site, in which about 170 workers were trapped for three hours on the 25th and 40th fire protection floors of the building.

Kwan said the fire department did not only need to update its equipment quickly, but more importantly, have a comprehensive set of fire safety regulations, in order to ensure that high rise properties and large-scale construction sites themselves are equipped with sufficient fire facilities and fire extinguishing systems that can help minimise the impact of fire.

However, she pointed out that Macau's current fire safety regulations had not been revised for more than a decade, and said a lot of provisions could no longer meet the rising demands of social development.

A cross-departmental work team was set up in 2003 to study revisions for fire safety regulations, Kwan said, but added that six years on, amendments can still not be seen.

With regulations lagging behind, the lawmaker said, some civil servants had testified in court that part of Macau's fire facilities for large-scale construction sites had to follow the assessment criteria of other countries.

For this reason, she asked the government whether it was true that Macau's aerial ladder trucks could not be extended to all areas or fire protection floors of skyscrapers or large construction projects.

And if it was true, Kwan asked whether the fire department had set out a contingency plan, such as using helicopters, to ensure that people could be saved from the fire quickly.

Kwan also asked the government what measures had been taken to ensure that construction sites, where fire facilities were not yet complete, have installed adequate fire extinguishing equipment.

The lawmaker urged the government to amend the "seriously obsolete" fire safety regulations as soon as possible, so that all buildings in Macau would have the capacity to prevent and extinguish fire, she said.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Macau Daily Times