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emipermanent residential areas of Jakarta frequently experience fire incidents. Making matters worse, these areas have little room for rescue personnel to operate once a fire breaks out, with narrow roads hampering efforts for fire trucks to approach and limited water sources, let alone hydrants, to put out the flames.

The capital city is home to some 10 million people, many of whom live in cramped semipermanent residential areas spread throughout its five municipalities. Houses standing side by side in these areas are usually made of flammable plywood, while some of the narrow alleyways are barely wide enough for motorcycles to pass.

West Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency operational head Rompis Romlih said the high population density made the semipermanent housing areas prone to fires.

“Many people live in one cramped area, in houses that are made of flammable materials. Fires can be easily sparked by short circuits,” he told The Jakarta Post, mentioning several districts that are prone to fire incidents, including Tambora and Kebon Jeruk, both in West Jakarta.

Data on the Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency’s website show that the capital city recorded 3,586 fire incidents since 2014 and 469 cases last year alone, with short circuits identified as the number-one cause.

Fire trucks often struggle to access the scene of a fire because of the narrow and packed alleyways. A case in point was the fire in Tambora on Jan. 3, which destroyed 65 houses and forced 408 people to flee from their homes.

“The alleyway to the fire spot was not only narrow, but [the entrance] was also packed with parked cars of residents. It was not easy to find the owners of the cars, so [the firefighters] struggled to pass through the alleyway [with the fire trucks],” Dwi Kurniasih, head of the Tambora subdistrict, one of the 11 subdistricts in Tambora district, said on Sunday.

Rompis explained that the narrow alleyways were the main obstacle for rescue efforts in semipermanent housing areas. However, rescue attempts were also frequently complicated by limited water sources, as water carried by a fire truck would only support eight minutes of use. Firefighters would then have to look for water from nearby rivers and gutters to extinguish the fire.

Rivers were often out of reach, while gutters were filled with moss instead of water, Rompis said, as was the case in the Jelambar fire in West Jakarta on Friday, which gutted 40 makeshift houses and killed one resident.

“I suggest residents clean their gutters frequently, because the water from these gutters plays a vital role in rescue efforts,” he said.

As fire trucks might not be able to arrive at the fire scene on time, let alone get through the small alleyways, the fire and rescue agency has deployed fire and rescue motorcycles to several districts in its five municipalities since 2012. The motorcycles are equipped with rubber hoses to extinguish fires.

Rompis said the firefighting motorcycles had been distributed to a number of community units (RWs), although he did not elaborate on the number of community units that had received the vehicles.

He confirmed that the motorcycles were proven to be helpful for extinguishing fires, as they were operated by residents in the area. However, as the motorcycles are left in the care of residents, some have apparently become damaged.

Dwi said the firefighting motorcycle in RW 7 had been broken and returned to the fire and rescue agency around 2016.

Sheila, 35, a resident of RW 7 in the Kali Anyar subdistrict of Tambora, said the firefighting motorcycle had been returned to the agency after it had broken down in 2018.

A firefighting motorcycle in RW 10 of the Jembatan Besi subdistrict of Tambora, meanwhile, was returned to the Tambora Fire and Rescue Office.

“We no longer have a place to keep the motorcycle or a person to maintain it,” RW 10 head Suripto said. (ars)