Another major fire broke out at a shopping centre situated in the heart of Lahore, which was extinguished in a timely manner by first responders, thankfully resulting in no casualties. This particular building is a stone’s throw from Hafeez Center, a multiple story tech shopping expanse that similarly caught fire less than two years ago, consuming four floors stocked with expensive merchandise, not to mention the extensive damage to hundreds of shops. While such installations are fully insured by private and public insurance companies, it is often not the case that individual shops that occupy them and their stock enjoy the same coverage. The monetary damage that such an incident entails is therefore a major blow to those affected, essentially small business owners whose livelihood depends on the active running of their shops. With inflation already eating into disposable incomes and bottom lines of businesses, losing a source of income to a fire, through no fault of their own is tragic and unfortunate.
Going by the frequency with which buildings in Lahore catch fire, it is likely that there are severe structural flaws in constructions that are situated in key city centers. Additionally, there seems to be no major focus on part of the authorities to establish effective fire safety protocols followed by effectively ensuring their implementation by building owners and occupants. It is a sad irony that the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), the institution responsible for manging residential and commercial properties in the city was itself a victim of a major fire at its headquarters in 2013. Horrific scenes were witnessed that day when eight people plunged to their death from the higher floors as no fire escape was installed in the building. LDA would later equip its building with an elaborate fire escape staircase, but it seems the same attention has not been paid to various other similar fire hazards in the city, as evidenced by the two recent major fires. A concentrated and extensive exercise to survey buildings of a certain age in the city to ascertain their structural integrity and fire safety protocols is required. All such buildings that lack basic fire safety features should be provided a deadline to make the necessary changes, failing which they should be fined and eventually sealed. New construction projects should not get necessary approvals to build until their construction plans and quality of materials being used are scrutinized thoroughly by relevant experts. Short of this, major fires will continue to breakout across the city.
