The lack of a fire prevention system at the Swallow sandal factory in West Jakarta made last Thursday’s blaze there the most difficult that the city’s fire department has handled in 91 years, officials say.
Fire chief Paimin Napitupulu said Monday the factory had an insufficient amount of fire extinguishers and emergency exits.
“When the fire broke out, the sole emergency door in the factory was locked, making it nearly impossible for the workers to evacuate quickly,” he said.
“The building failed to meet the minimum fire safety standards.”
At least four people died in the blaze that erupted Thursday afternoon.
A person identifying himself only as Anton, the HR manager for PT Sinar Jaya Prakarsa, the company that ran the Swallow sandal factory, called the management’s decision to lock the fire exit “a mistake”.
The company has not given an official statement on the matter, and Anton declined to give his full name or refer questions to senior company officials.
The blaze continued to rage on as of Monday evening.
“This is the most difficult blaze we’ve handled in the 91 years of the fire department’s existence,” chief Paimin said, adding flammable chemicals spilling out beneath the ironwork mangled by the main fire could spark another inferno.
Firefighters are using an excavator to move the clear the area and look for smaller fires.
“The ironwork’s keeping up from extinguishing the smaller fires going on underneath, and that’s why it’s taking us days to completely put out this fire,” an on-duty firefighter told The Jakarta Post.
Despite the fire department’s assessment of the substandard fire safety in place at the Swallow factory, the police say they will only begin a forensic investigation once the site is “like, totally safe”.
“The factory and its owners are all registered, right?” said Kalideres Police chief detective Second. Insp. Herru S.Y., leading the police’s lackadaisical probe of the blaze.
“So there’s no need to worry about them running away if we find they’re guilty of negligence.”
He added the police had questioned four workers as witnesses in the case.
“We’ll question the company’s management after we complete the forensic investigation,” Herru said.
Building owners are required by law to have water sprinklers, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and fire hydrants on their premises.
However, many instances of poor maintenance and negligence have seen these systems malfunction or not working altogether.
Anton, from the Swallow factory management, said the 20,000-square-meter factory had 20 hydrants and 216 fire extinguishers.
“We’ve tried to prevent fires from happening, but this one was a real disaster,” he said, adding the financial losses to the company would be huge.
The company employs 1,175 workers, more than a half of them outsourced.
Several fires broke out last week in Jakarta.
On Thursday morning, a fire broke out at Senen Market in Central Jakarta, razing 250 kiosks and 80 street vendors’ stalls and causing an estimated Rp 8.5 billion (US$930,000) in losses.
On Saturday, the city also recorded a fire on board a yacht moored off Mutiara Beach in North Jakarta, bringing to 46 the total number of fires in the city so far this year.
