Fire safety in Mirpur eatery hubs: Better, with room for improvement
Contrary to other restaurant hubs with insufficient staircases-cum-fire exits blocked with various objects, buildings in Mirpur, including the Sony Square, turned out to be better equipped
Sony Square in Mirpur 1 is a popular eatery hub in the area. Along with the Star Cineplex and a couple of fashion brands, the five-storey building houses many of the big names in the restaurant industry – Secret Recipe, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Barcelos and so on.
Besides, on the fifth floor, there are a dozen smaller outlets in the food court, and Sky Lounge on the rooftop.
Since the Bailey Road fire on Thursday night, this food hub is also suffering from the customers' fear and distaste at the sheer lack of fire safety shown by many of the restaurant-filled buildings in the city.
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However, when we visited Sony Square on Monday, it appeared to have impressive fire safety arrangements. The building seemed to be safer than other buildings with multiple restaurants in Mirpur, and also than many others in the whole city, as the series of recent TBS reports on the fire safety scenario revealed.
Contrary to other restaurant hubs with insufficient staircases-cum-fire exits blocked with various objects, the six staircases in Sony Square, located on three sides of the building, are surprisingly kept free.
However, on the fourth floor in the staircase, we did see six cardboard boxes with styrofoam frames inside, but they didn't gather dust, suggesting they were waiting to be removed anytime.
More importantly, every landing in the stairwell has a fire hose along with a fire extinguisher. Fire hose pipes can be rolled out in case of a fire and used to carry water right to the source of the fire to douse it.
The restaurants in the building have visible smoke detectors.
Smoke detection alarms are important, an official stationed at Fire Service and Civil Defence Training Centre in Mirpur 10 said. Seeking anonymity, she said that the occupants of the Bailey Road building could have evacuated long before the fire spread all over the building had there been fire alarms.
Although we did not notice any sprinkler in the restaurants, the fire hose gave a feeling of assurance.
The exits are clearly marked and illuminated direction signs are reasonably placed all around.
All the stairs lead to the rooftop, where a restaurant is situated.
According to the National Building Code, rooftops must be accessible. In fact, many were able to save themselves in Bailey road fire by taking refuge in the vacant space of the roof.
Restaurants in Sony Square are also equipped with multiple fire extinguishers each, and managers said their staffers are trained to douse a fire.
"The building has a fire team, and they train our employees. Whenever someone new joins our restaurant, we inform the team and they train the new guy," said Abid Hasan, manager of Secret Recipe.
Unlike most other restaurants in the building, KFC and Pizza Hut do not share multiple exits. These two outlets have a separate staircase of their own, which is the only entry and exit point. Of course, the glass-walled outlets are situated on the first floor, making the evacuation easier in case of an emergency.
In this regard, including fire axes in the fire safety equipment could be appropriate in the glass-wrapped buildings. Breaking the glasses also prevents the smoke from filling up the interior. Most of the Bailey road victims actually died of suffocation rather than direct fire injury.
In Mirpur 12, Sultan Mansion houses multiple diners and a food court on the rooftop with more than a dozen outlets.
The building has two spacious stairwells on the north and south side of the building apart from a pair of elevators.
The stairwells are mostly empty but on the fifth and sixth floor in the north stairwell, we came across some flammable materials such as towels hung on the railings for drying, and plastic drums.
On the other hand, the south stairwell is nicely decorated with boards up to fifth storey, which kind of beats the purpose of a fire exit.
Asked where he would go in case of a fire, Naimul Islam, a food-court staff said he would descend the stairs if the fire originated on the rooftop restaurants and wait on the roof for fire service cranes had it started in the lower storeys.
We also visited Sultan's Dine in Mirpur 10 although the building it is in does not house any other restaurants.
The building also has two stairwells, complying with the building code. The front staircase has a fire extinguisher ball and a hose connected to the water line.
On the inside, the popular restaurant also has multiple fire extinguishers. The fire exit, however, goes through the kitchen, and the kitchen door was not marked as a fire exit when we visited.
A major restaurant hub in Pallabi, Mirpur, Safura Tower, home to Khana's, Domino's Pizza, KFC, BFC, Crimson Cup and a lot other cafes and diners, remained locked since Sunday. A guard at the gate said the building is closed for fire safety renovations. The building management, when called over the phone, did not respond to our queries.
Meanwhile, the Mirpur restaurateurs said most of them faced a lower customer number than usual, and they hoped that the customers would forget the issue as time passed.
