Cairo- For about 20 hours, firefighting teams have been starting to extinguish the fire in the Silence building, one of the main communication centers in Egypt, while other teams of communications engineers were trying to restore digital services that were partially stopped by the fire, which broke out last week.
Because of the fragrance of the incident and its direct repercussions on the interests of the citizens, most of the governmental, popular and media attention was directed towards the telecommunications center, while the flames were ignited by sequences in a famous hotel, manufacturers and a commercial center in the governorates of Alexandria, Giza and Damietta.
According to an official census, in 2024, Egypt witnessed about 46,925 fire accidents, or 129 accidents per day, and the number of deceased was 232 citizens.
The data of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (government agency) shows more than 438,000 fires in the country between 2010 and 2020, causing losses in property only about 3.6 billion pounds (equivalent to 72 million dollars).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4-ovncusic
The most important causes
While estimates of larger losses are officially announced, for example, a fire broke out in 2016 in the Al -Muski area in central Cairo, and its losses were estimated at about 450 million pounds (9.105 million dollars), and in 2019 a fire broke out in the same area at the cost of losses of 500 million pounds (10.117 million pounds), and a fire broke out, the day before yesterday, Monday, in a garage in Alexandria Governorate, and came on 91 vehicles.
According to the statistical device, industrial fire is the most important main causes of fires by 31.6%, followed by an electrical contact by 18% of the total fire causes. Industrial fire may result from cigarettes, sulfur sticks, or burning material such as fireworks.
The former director of the National Center for Occupational Safety and Health Studies, Majdi Salib, says that there are international standards for applying occupational safety within the work environment and breaching these standards increases the facility.
He added to Al -Jazeera Net that the human element, production materials and the work environment are a triangle ribs that achieve professional safety or their lack of safety according to the extent of applying safety requirements within the place.
And give an example using poor materials for manufacturing such as products and imitation electrical tools, which may cause electrical seam and thus the outbreak of fires, as well as high temperatures within the facility may result in disasters.
Climate and its factors
Starting from the Central Ramses fire, a solution center for alternative policies at the American University in Cairo launched a vision of the most important causes of fire accidents in the country through a recent analytical report.
Although the first reference to the report was due to the weak vital infrastructure in the face of disasters in Egypt, it went on to focus on climate change and its role in igniting fires.
The report, titled “After the Ramses Fire … Reconsidering the digital structure in Egypt” stated that Egypt faces high risks of fires as a result of climatic conditions with a possibility exceeding 50%.
“The high temperatures are pushing the population to use an intense use of air conditioning and cooling devices, which weighs the electricity network, and increases the possibility of electrical breakdowns that lead to fires, as well as concrete density, asphalt surfaces and buildings attached to thermal retention, and high air temperatures and surfaces to more than natural averages.”
According to the report, during the period between 2017 and 2020, and at the height of the road expanding projects carried out by the Egyptian government, Cairo lost large areas of vegetation, which led to the emergence of the urban thermal island phenomenon, where temperatures reach higher than its natural level, which greatly increases the possibility of fires.
During an emergency session in the House of Representatives on the Central Ramses incident, parliamentarians asked the Minister of Communications about the possibility that behind the fire was a sabotage action, but the minister excluded this, and demanded that the results of the investigation be awaited by the Public Prosecution.
The infrastructure sagging
For his part, the director of the International Center for Development Studies, Mustafa Youssef, attributed the fires in Egypt for several reasons, including the small number of civil defense and firefighting stations compared to the number of population and buildings.
He told Al -Jazeera Net, that there is a sagging in the government system and weakness in local administrations, which weakens dealing with risks such as fires.
Although there is no comprehensive census of the number of civil defense stations in Egypt, a report issued by Cairo Governorate shows that the number of firefighters there reached 85 centers with a total of 112 fire engines, to serve more than 10 million people who live in the capital.
The expert, Youssef, alluded to the absence of popular awareness of how to deal at the time of fires and the weak legislation related to safety requirements, warning and monitoring devices for installations, which increases the losses of lives and property.
During televised statements, the former director of the Civil Protection Department, Major General Mamdouh Abdel Qader, said that the early warning system and firefighting equipment are already in the facilities, but maintenance work may not take place as desired.
He added that neglecting the warning and extinguishing equipment inside the buildings without maintenance may lead to disruption when a fire and the desire to operate it.
