Building safety: PTCL seeking arson FIR in premises fire

Rescue 1122 and PFSA had concluded the fire was caused by overheating of equipment.

LAHORE: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has sought the registration of an FIR for investigation by police into the causes of a fire at its facilities last month, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) had concluded that the fire was caused by overheating of the equipment due to improper cooling system in the building during load shedding hours.

Operations DIG Haider Ashraf told The Express Tribune that an FIR would be registered based on application by the PTCL administration.

He said the PFSA report would be considered during investigation. He said no persecution would result if it was established that the fire was not started by design.

Rescue 1122 had issued a report on October 1. It said a guard had told Rescue 1122 that he saw some wires burning and called for help.

The Rescue 1122 report noted that that building had no fire hydrants and insufficient basic fire safety measures.

The PFSA report had noted that fire alarms and water sprinklers in the building had not been functional.

The PFSA concluded that the fire broke out due to excessive heating during load shedding hours on the third and the fourth floors.

The report said that the PTCL administration had been using pedestal fans to cool down equipment.

“The presence of plugged pedestal fans near the installations indicates that the air conditioning during the power failure for maintaining the temperature of equipment was not sufficient, and caused the heating of equipment,” the report said.

Building Engineer Attiqur Rehman told The Express Tribune that the building had proper fire safety equipment.

He said sprinklers had been operational.

He said the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained.

He said that he was unaware of the Rescue 1122 and PFSA reports.

Senior Security Manager Major Uzair Ahmad expressed ignorance about the application for registration of an FIR.

The fire had broken out at the main exchange building of the PTCL on Egerton Road at 1:30am on September 28 on the fourth floor. It was put out in 36 hours.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2014.