VIJAYAWADA: How fire-safe is the ongoing industrial and agricultural exhibition at Swaraj Maidan in the city in the event of an outbreak of fire?

A day after a major fire accident at an electronics exhibition in Meerut, which left at least 50 dead, this question has engaged the minds of citizens and officials here alike.

Consequently, District Collector Navin Mittal on Tuesday convened a meeting with the representatives of the Krishna Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition Society to review fire safety arrangements. Mr. Mittal wanted the organisers to leave no room for occurrence of any kind of fire accident - major or minor.

As a result, the organisers are now planning to station a fire tender right in the midst of the exhibition grounds. Though a fire station is located just next to the grounds, a fire tender cannot enter the premises through the narrow (metre-wide) entrance towards the Mahatma Gandhi Road.

The main entrance with a six-metre width is located opposite the State Guest House.

In the event of an emergency, a fire tender takes at least five to six minutes to reach the exhibition through the main entrance.

Fire extinguishers

The other steps contemplated were increasing the number of fire extinguishers; setting up of one more gate; checking electrical wires and connections frequently; and asking the traders to keep off packaging material, which catches fire instantly.

Spread over a 12-acre land, the exhibition has 430 stalls, including a play area, amusement arena and food courts.

About 15,000 people are visiting the exhibition every evening.

The number almost gets doubled on Sundays and holidays.

"We have sent a letter to the Exhibition Society listing out 15 precautions they should take before opening the exhibition. But it looks like they did not implement any one of our suggestions," said District Fire Officer D. Murali Mohan.

Water tankers

Maintenance of water tankers; sand buckets and fire extinguishers at every sixth stall; deployment of fire personnel in the exhibition; removal of waste material from the stalls everyday; and discouraging stallholders from preparing food within their stalls were some of the suggestions made by the fire service officials.

Admitting that they had received suggestions from the department of fire services, Exhibition Society secretary M. Narayana Prasad said that a wide gate could not be set up towards the Mahatma Gandhi Road, as an amusement arena was designed there.

"We did the mistake of not setting up a wide gate there. We will compensate for this by setting up one more gate, possibly on the Collector's camp office road," Mr. Prasad said.

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