Many people say that the recent fires in Karachi’s industrial areas were planned by the factory owners themselves in order to claim insurance against losses they are continuously suffering due to the political turmoil in Pakistan. I have been running a number of industrial units for the past forty years, yet I do not remember any instance when an insurance company representative paid a visit to a factory to check if fire extinguishers were charged properly or there was water in the storage tank to control a fire.
A possible reason for the fire incidents is the burning of wood in winter to warm the atmosphere by factory watchmen and other workers. It is possible that any of the recent fires was caused by this phenomenon. Also, there have been some fire incidents in residential areas in which small power generators caught fire and set the whole building ablaze. I don’t see any reason why people prefer to install electricity generators inside their apartments because the same can be fixed in the compounds of apartments which will reduce the chances of a big fire if one of the generators catches fire.
In any case, it should be made compulsory for the factory and residential building owners to eliminate all chances of a big fire within their building. Periodic inspections by government inspectors and insurance companies’ representatives will also help prevent any major fire incident in the future.