Managers of public places, national parks, forests, and storage facilities run by both the government and private businesses have until December to comply with the country’s new fire safety regulations.

The decision was announced yesterday by Seraphine Mukantabana, the minister for disaster management and refugee affairs (Midimar).

Briefing journalists about the Prime Minister’s order relating to the fire prevention in the country, promulgated last week, Mukantabana said six months was ample time to comply with the regulations.

"The grace period is based on the seriousness of the problem and six months is enough time. Why would we have to wait more than six months to correct the current mistakes?” she said.

Last week, government issued new instructions to enforce existing fire safety laws, following a recent spate in fire outbreaks in the country, the latest being yesterday at Gikondo.

Last week, fire also gutted buildings in the city trading centre, commonly known as Quartier Mateus, days after another fire killed five inmates and injured 60 others in Rubavu Prison.

"Even one dead person from fire incidents is too many. Let’s understand that these instructions are here to protect people and their property. They are not in any way about penalising people,” the minister said.

The regulation

Under the instructions, any public building or other public places shall have, at a minimum, the following fire-fighting equipments: a fire alarm system with an alarm bell on each floor; smoke detectors and sprinklers on each floor; a fire extinguisher every 50 metres on each floor; hose reels on each floor; closed circuit television cameras and a control room; and a lightning conductor.

The instructions have also detailed how wild fires must be prevented, installations of electricity in public and residential buildings done, and specified that the installations must be inspected and certified before use.

The installations will also be inspected every three years by the government’s law enforcing agencies, which will be ready to hand sanctions to non-compliers.

Mukantabana said government will this week reveal an implementation plan to secure compliance with the new fire safety regulations.

Awareness campaign

Part of the activities in the plan, the minister said, will be an awareness campaign so that more people can understand why they have to upgrade their structures.

"It’s all about changing the attitude. The way someone decides that their houses will have windows and doors, the same applies to fire safety installations. How can people have the means to build a house and fail to buy a few equipments to protect it?” she said.

Although the process to upgrade buildings to comply with fire safety regulations has been relatively slow, some analysts say a six-month ultimatum is generally enough time.

"Upgrading to comply with fire safety rules should be easy because it is all about buying the equipment and installing it,” said Bosco Nkurikiyinka, a Kigali-based trained security manager and fire fighter.

He said six months should be enough to comply with basic fire safety regulations unless it’s an exceptional case for some buildings.

The City of Kigali director of media and communication, Bruno Rangira, told The New Times yesterday that 30 per cent of the 150 structures have not fulfilled all the requirements.

Rangira had said in a past interview that most old buildings in Kigali that are yet to comply with fire safety rules have not yet installed fire hydrants, one of the requirements for fire safety clearance when developers apply for occupancy permits.