Fire, gas and electrical safety

If you smell gas — the first thirty seconds

Read this part first, because the wrong action takes one second.

• Touch no switch — not on, not off. The spark in a switch is enough.
• No lights, no fans, and do not make a phone call inside the flat.
• Open the doors and windows and let the air move.
• Shut the stove and cylinder valves, if you can reach them safely.
• Get everyone out, and call from outside.

Titas Gas complaints: **16496**. In an emergency, **999**. A significant share of apartment fires and explosions in Bangladesh trace back to gas accumulating from ageing pipelines and unauthorised connections — a smell is never something to talk yourself out of.

The kitchen

The risk is almost always in the same three places: the stove connection, the regulator and the hose. Twice a year you can check them yourself.

• Brush soapy water over the connections. Bubbles mean a leak — stop using it until someone qualified has fixed it.
• Replace a rubber hose that has hardened or cracked. Replacing it early is the cheap option.
• Get into the habit of closing the stove’s main valve at night.
• Nothing cloth, paper or plastic on or beside the stove.
• Keep a small extinguisher in the kitchen, and check its date.

If you use a cylinder

• Upright, always — never on its side and never rolled.
• In a ventilated place, out of direct sun and away from heat.
• Not under the stove, and not pressed against it.
• Safety cap on when it is not in use.
• Never stored in a basement or under a stairwell — the gas is heavier than air and settles low.

Electrical

A new flat is wired for an assumed load, and air conditioners and heaters added over the years quietly pass it. An MCB that keeps tripping is not an annoyance; it is the warning working.

• Never run an air conditioner, heater or iron off a multi-plug.
• A warm cable, a scorch mark on a plug, or a burning smell means an electrician now.
• Do not replace a tripping MCB with a larger one. Find the cause.
• Do not touch bathroom switches or sockets with wet hands.
• Have the distribution board and the earthing checked once a year.

If there is a fire — in a 15-storey building

The two worst mistakes in a tall building are taking the lift, and stopping to gather belongings. When the power goes the lift stops, and it becomes a trap.

• Take the stairs. Never the lift.
• Stay low in smoke — the clean air is near the floor.
• Feel a door with the back of your hand before opening it. If it is hot, leave it shut.
• If you cannot get out, seal the gap under the door with wet cloth, get to the veranda and signal.
• Once you are out, stay out.

The buildings are designed with a fire-fighting reservoir and a dry-type hydrant. Having them and having them work are different things: annual testing is the committee’s job, and asking whether it happened is your right. Storing belongings in the stairwell or corridor blocks the route on precisely the day it matters.

Numbers worth saving now

• National emergency — 999 (police, fire service, ambulance)
• Fire Service and Civil Defence — 102 or 16163
• Titas Gas — 16496
• DESCO, the electricity distributor for Uttara — 16120
• Dhaka WASA — 16162 (8am to 11pm)
• Your guard room, and two committee members