A fire tender in front of Priya Hotel on Tuesday. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar: April 20: Tuesday’s blaze in a south Indian hotel in the city’s Unit III area has brought the issue of fire safety in multi-storeyed commercials complexes into focus. Fire brigade personnel, who fought the flames at the hotel yesterday, said the place had fire-fighting equipment but the staff did not know how to use them.

What made matters worse was the lack of ventilation system in the hotel which allowed the smoke to permeate the entire building.

“We found fire extinguishers in the hotel and three of them were half burnt. We got to know that they had tried to douse the fire with the help of these extinguishers. But they lacked knowledge of using these equipment,” said B.B. Das, the officer who had led the fire-fighting team yesterday. Moreover, when the fire brigade vehicles reached the hotel, the lack of space around the building forced them to stay at a distance.

“One side of the road leading to the hotel was so narrow that the vehicle could not move. This prevented more than one vehicle to work from a single angle,” said a member of the fire-fighting team.

A similar situation exists in many more hotels and commercial complexes that have poor fire-fighting mechanism. Contrary to the guidelines mentioned in the Planning and Building Standard Regulation, 2008, most of these establishments have little space around them for free movement of fire tenders.

But hotel owners say they have proper fire-fighting arrangement. “We have kept fire extinguishers in ample numbers for this purpose,” said a hotel owner on Cuttack-Puri road. But he refused to comment on the violation of fire-fighting norms of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and lack of training of hotel employees to handle equipment to douse flames.

Officials of the BDA, however, said those who had set up their establishments before 2008 were not following the fire-fighting regulations. “But those who established their business after 2008 in these buildings have followed the norms,” said a BDA official. Fire brigade officials said that people earlier were not aware of the possibility of such mishaps taking place but yesterday’s incident has opened their eyes. “We hope the administration looks into such matters seriously and asks people to take corrective steps,” said a fire brigade official.