Gov affirms extensive fire safety requirements in tall buildings

BANGKOK, 8 April 2016 (NNT) - The Deputy Interior Minister has assured the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) that the government has in place fire safety regulations for tall buildings, while all agencies are required to conduct emergency drills every year.

The NLA posed a question to the Prime Minister regarding the government’s policy towards fire safety in tall buildings.

Deputy Interior Minister Suthee Makbun affirmed the government’s urban policy regarding safety and said the law requires buildings to install safety equipment and provide emergency exit instructions, as well as fire hoses and vehicle access.

Mr. Suthee also affirmed that all agencies and local administrations are required to conduct fire drills every year.

-- NNT 2016-04-08

and the Transport Dept assures that buses, vans and trains are safe...

and Police will strictly enforce traffic laws...

and... and... and...

I affirm that I am the all powerful LORD. Relinquish your money, property, and hot women to me, and you will be spared!!!

The regulations are in place. Not much else is.

Hope they include the 'falang jump off the balcony test' in these requirements !

The regulations might be there but no one follows them, another pointless exercise.

Are the existing regulations obsolete or have not been upgraded to follow international experiences?

Just to name two items: lack of two separate sets of fire doors into pressurized fire stairwells and permitting the construction of internal air wells that would spread smoke onto the internal corridors.

The regulations might be there but no one follows them, another pointless exercise.

As in every other country until something happens for a reminder, until time passes and it happens again and again, but "if you never really have to use what you learn about fire safety, it wasn't a waste of time learning".

Edited April 8, 201610 yr by silent

I know someone who is a health and safety consultant for a large oil company. When they send an executive to Thailand they send him in to check out the hotel safety. He says there are many examples where the fire sprinklers and hoses don't connect to any pipework! But each year these places are issued a fire safety certificate. TIT.

If memory serves right, in Bangkok, after the latest in an ongoing series of high-rise fires some years ago, the local government did enact a law requiring new-built buildings to have fire sprinklers and for SOME older buildings to have them done as retrofits, usually when any major rehab work is being done.

The upshot is, AFAIK, there are still a lot of older, high-rise buildings around BKK that don't have fire sprinklers, and who knows if even the newer ones are having that enforced via building codes, given that inspectors looking the other way seems to be a common occurrence here.

Recall, there was a big high-rise fire in the Sathorn area some weeks back where the elderly mother of a former prominent politician whose family owned the building ended up dying. That building had no fire sprinklers, and the narrow streets around the building contributed to delaying the ability of firefighters to seriously combat the fire.

In short, the answer provided above by the deputy minister would seem to be pretty disingenuous. But, it does SOUND good...