The Jakarta Fire Department said that 141 fires occurred in August with a total financial loss of Rp 30.07 billion (US$3.5 million). The August figure was more than one-third of the total 626 fires occurring so far in 2011. The fires have killed 11 people and injured 53 others, including seven firefighters, and have caused
Rp 159.94 billion in losses.

The fire department has blamed 60 percent of the fires on faulty wiring, mostly in crowded neighborhoods.

Urban analyst Elisa Sutanudjaja, from the private Tarumanegara University, said that residents living in slums and densely populated neighborhoods need education on fire prevention, especially against illegal tapping of electricity from the state electricity company’s (PLN) power grid.

“Short circuits happen because of this bad habit of illegal tapping of electricity. This practice can lead to overloading capacity, which in the end causes fires. These people usually don’t know the consequences of their actions, or what to do when fires actually break out,” she told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Elisa also said that given the density of some neighborhoods, which can hamper the work of firefighters, plus the lack of resources within the fire department, locals need to be able to handle fires themselves.

“Local needs to be regularly trained on how to handle a disaster and evacuation,” Elisa said.

Elisa said that residents of Muara Baru in North Jakarta, an area in the city with the highest number of fires, have set a good example on how to deal with such emergencies.

“They learned from previous incidents and worked together to educate themselves,” she said.

Fellow urban analyst, Yayat Supriatna, blames local authorities for the high incidence of fire in the city’s slums and poor neighborhoods.

“These local authorities, in the community and neighborhood units, have failed to monitor the theft of electricity,” he was quoted as saying by Kompas.

Yayat also blamed PLN for failing to act on illegal electricity tapping. “If PLN refused to provide electricity to those neighborhoods, those fires would not have happened,” he said.

Head of the Jakarta Fire Department said that in most fires, firefighters do not have problems in reaching the source of the fire in crowded neighborhoods.

“Hose from fire trucks can reach up to two kilometers into a neighborhood. Our only problem is the lack of water supply,” he told the Post.

“Some of these slums are located near a river or water reservoir, but some are not,” he said.

Paimin also said his agency’s lack of resources had contributed to the slow response in a number of cases.

He said that the fire department now only has 365 fire engines and 3,600 personnel at its disposal.

“Ideally, Jakarta needs 40 percent more than the existing number of fire engines. Also, the ideal number of firefighters is 6,000 personnel,” he said, adding firefighters need better pay for their high-risk jobs. (swd)

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