KUCHING: A DAP delegation led by Member of Parliament for Bandar Kuching Dr Kelvin Yii paid a courtesy visit to the State Director of the Fire & Rescue Department Malaysia Sarawak PKPjB Nor Hisham bin Mohammad at their headquarters at Jalan Setia Raja, Tabuan Jaya in Kuching yesterday.
During the visit Yii was briefed by the Fire Department officers on the daily operations and services in running the Fire Department in the whole of Sarawak as well as the different initiatives and programmes carried out to further educate the public and business owners on fire safety and regulations.
“One of the main issues discussed was the fire safety requirements of hotels, tourist hostels and even homestays that were on an increase in our areas. While fire safety approval may be given to a certain commercial unit for certain business purposes, in a lot of the cases, such business premises are renovated into hotels or hostels that house a significant amount of people more than the original licence approved in the first place.
“We were also informed, many of these businesses continue running without fire safety approval due to the lack of enforcement,” said Yii.
He said they also brought up the issue of fire safety in home day-care, Tahfiz religious schools and also orphanages in a house premise.
“We do not want another unwanted incident like when a fire broke out at the Pusat Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah religious centre at Kampung Datuk Keramat, KL last year which took the lives of 23 school children. In that case the bodies of the children were burnt so severely that DNA testing had to be done just to properly identify them. It was alleged as well that the premises was functioning without meeting proper fire safety requirements set by the fire department.
“We of course want to avoid such incidents in our State and will work with the different relevant agencies to tackle this matter including addressing the issue of enforcement. We will also work together with the Fire Department to promote greater awareness of fire safety even among the students, children and parents.
“On top of that, we discussed the relationship between the federal government and also the Fire Department and how we can both effectively work together for the benefit of the people. One of the needs brought up by the fire department is the need to set up new branches in areas around Kuching. One of the identified locations which we will actively pursue is the setting up of a new Fire Station at Batu Kawah region, so it can cater for the areas surrounding it,” he said.
He added in an event of a fire in Batu Kawah, the nearest station is Batu Lintang and it might not be so ideal in terms of the distance and response time.
“We will look into this issue and use the platform we were entrusted with to make the necessary request for the betterment and safety of the people.”
