Damaged Bangkok FICO Place Building Covered By Bt230M Fire Insurance Policy

[webfact]

Damaged Fico Place building covered by Bt230m fire insurance policy

Thanatpong Khongsai,

Khanathit Srihirundaj

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The Fico Place office building, which was damaged by a three-hour blaze on Saturday, is covered by a Bt230-million fire policy from Generali Insurance (Thailand), the Insurance Commission said yesterday.

Director-general Prawet Ongartsitthikul said the agency was asking companies that had rented offices that suffered fire damage in the building off Asoke Road for details on fire or damage policies they might have.

Police and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) started inspecting the 13-storey building to determine the cause of the inferno and estimate the damage it caused.

No date for completing the investigation has been specified.

Bangkok Deputy Governor Theerachon Manomaiphibool reiterated that owners of all high-rises in the city were encouraged to install water sprinklers in their properties, although more than a thousand of them were constructed before 1992 when a law requiring automatic sprinkler systems took effect.

A directive will be issued to make installation of sprinklers in all high-rises mandatory, he said, referring to the delay in fighting the fire because the first ladder trucks to arrive at the scene could not reach the flames, which broke out on the seventh floor of the building.

LOUD BANG HEARD

Wanitcha Sukkhuwitchanant, who lives next to Fico Place, said he heard a loud bang and saw smoke and flames spewing from the seventh floor.

The retiree said he saw a few workers in the building looking out of the windows on other floors at the fire but they ran away, and that it was him who called emergency authorities.

Wanitcha said his house was smeared by the ashes and filled with shattered glass. He called on the Fico Place building owner or Watthana district staff to deal with the clean-up.

Pol Maj-General Anuchai Lekbamrung, who led a team of Thong Lor police and BMA inspectors into the building, said the seventh to ninth floors were heavily damaged.

Police do not yet know the cause of the fire, saying it could have the result of an accident, carelessness or arson.

Staff from the Engineering Institute of Thailand under royal patronage also looked around inside the building and said a more thorough inspection was needed to judge whether the structure could still be used as is. EIT head Thanes Weerasiri said a building subjected to the intense heat of a fire for more than 10 hours would not normally be used or reinforced, but was a candidate for demolition.

The Fico fire lasted about two to three hours, according to two media reports.

Pol Colonel Ratthasak Raksalam, superintendent of Thong Lor Police Station, said police would rely mainly on evidence supplied by their own investigation, although the inspection was carried out with BMA fire-safety experts and independently by the EIT.

Fico Place building management held meetings with staff and later with tenants. Personnel chief Theerathat Khongjan said the tenants had been informed of the situation in general and another meeting with them would be held today.

-- The Nation 2012-03-06

related topic:

Fire On 7th Floor Of FICO Building, Asoke Area: Bangkok

http://www.thaivisa....e-area-bangkok/

[IMA_FARANG]

Question: What does FICO mean? I assume it is a corporation, but what is the "long" name.

[Reasonableman]

Looks like someone's fingers are gonna get burnt. Insurance-premium payers, at least.

[hkt83100]

Question: What does FICO mean? I assume it is a corporation, but what is the "long" name.

Fire Insurance Corporation?? Edited March 6, 2012 by hkt83100

[mark5335]

Question: What does FICO mean? I assume it is a corporation, but what is the "long" name.

Unsure what it stands for, but they own many prime properties:

http://www.ficocorporation.com/

[airconsult]

"A directive will be issued to make installation of sprinklers in all high-rises mandatory,"

I'd like to believe him, I really, really would..... but I suspect he will later say that he only meant the new buildings, which should have it under the law anyway.

I took a quick survey yesterday among people I know in State-owned enterprises (mostly banks). Most of those pretty buildings have no evident sprinkler system either.

Sad really.

I'd encourage everyone where-ever you go to look around for the fire suppression systems.

[Thai at Heart]

Retrofit all office blocks? A very noble plan.

They couldn't even put a fire system in Santika. Who is going to do it in a 20 year old office block? Unfortunately, this is now another reason for foreign companies to not put their investments in Thailand.

[Lite Beer]

Owners of buildings constructed before 1992 told to install water sprinklers

BANGKOK, 6 March 2012 (NNT) – The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will draft a rule demanding that all buildings constructed before 1992 have water sprinklers installed. Meanwhile the structure of the Fico Building on Asok Road reportedly remains intact.

A huge fire broke out at the Fico Building on Saturday, causing widespread concerns over the safety precautions of old buildings in Bangkok. Deputy Bangkok Governor Teerachon Manomaiphibul has been asking for cooperation from more than 1,000 old building owners in Bangkok to have sprinklers installed.

He also told BMA’s 50 district branches to register all old buildings into the digitizing system, which will enable authorities to pin-point the exact location of the buildings in order for them to get to the scene quickly and have better access to the buildings in case of fire.

He said the BMA is prepared to impose the 1992 Building Safety Control Act on the more than 1,000 old buildings in Bangkok to prevent incidents of the same nature. The Act will make it compulsory for buildings constructed prior to 1992 to have adequate water sprinklers

Meanwhile, after inspecting the Fico Building on Monday, the Engineering Institute of Thailand under His Majesty the King’s Patronage (EIT) has revealed that the building is still intact and does not need to be demolished. It said the ninth floor has been damaged the most but the structure of the building has not been affected. The recovery process is expected to take at least a month.

Police presumed the fire incident was either caused by human error or electrical short-circuit. Further investigation is underway.

-- NNT 2012-03-06

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The prior news report in this thread says more than 1,000 high rise type buildings in BKK were built prior to the 1992 regulation on fire sprinklers taking effect. That's a lot of potential fire traps out there waiting for a disaster to happen.

As for the BMA and their "planning to issue a directive," will that be before or after their directives about getting beggars off the streets, or about tearing down the supposedly illegally over-height hotel on Soi Ruamrudee, or on completing flood control measures aimed at preventing another BKK flood this coming year??? Or any number of other promised but never done initiatives.

As for the hundreds of millions of baht in fire insurance on the building, perhaps that's why no one seemed to be particularly rushing to have the fire put out.

[kruangfaifar]

Retrofit all office blocks? A very noble plan.

They couldn't even put a fire system in Santika. Who is going to do it in a 20 year old office block? Unfortunately, this is now another reason for foreign companies to not put their investments in Thailand.

Rubbish. What has this got to do with foreign investment? Foreign companies invest here because it makes commercial sense to do so particularly if they are in a business that qualifies for BoI priveleges. I don't think that fire protection systems in somebody else's building holds much interest for foreign investors

[MaiChai]

Fenatex International Co? Seems to a business of the Srichawla family.

Edited March 6, 2012 by MaiChai

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

From the FICO Website

http://www.ficocorporation.com/