Situation with fire safety should be radically changed - Rustem Khamitov

UFA, 17 April 2018. /Bashinform News Agency/. It is necessary to radically change an approach to ensuring fire safety, including in shopping malls and other heavily trafficked facilities in the country and the republic. This was stated by the Head of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov at a meeting of the Interdepartmental Council for Public Security of the region, which was devoted to the results of security checks of shopping and entertainment complexes.

“It is known that Russia is not the leader in the number of fires. But it is in our country, our republic, where more people die per thousand of fires than in the western countries”, said Rustem Khamitov.

According to the head of the region, primarily a human factor lies at the heart of most of the tragedies.

"The personnel of these shopping and entertainment centers, security specialists, in most cases do not understand their responsibility, are not ready for competent activity", Rustem Khamitov said.

Another reason is cutting corners on fire safety systems.

The third factor is corruption at all stages of the shopping centers construction: from the adoption of the design to the construction of the facility and its commissioning.

“Generally speaking, the preparation of our citizens for response to fires is very poor. In our cities and rural settlements, we see that people really do not know how to act in case of fires, and that's why they often die”, the Head of the Region said.

Rustem Khamitov also pointed to the poorly equipped firefighters and rescuers, and sometimes their slow response. The time of arrival of the first fire brigade at the scene in the cities should not exceed 10 minutes, in rural settlements - 20 minutes. In practice, firefighters come much later. In this case, often there is not enough equipment to extinguish the fire, fire hydrants do not work, the adjacent territory is blocked by cars. As a result, fires are rapidly spreading.