All photos courtesy of Ministry of Interior on Facebook
In an effort to reduce emergency response times, Qatar’s Civil Defense department has been testing out new fire trucks that are small enough to operate within the country’s malls.
According to the Ministry of Interior, the vehicles are electrically operated and thus produce no exhaust or pollutants. They are also equipped to fight fires on the spot.
In a statement, MOI explained:
“(The trucks have a) capacity of 700 liters of water and foam by 3% and the amount of water pushing force of 15 meters and fitted with a hose to extinguish up to 35 meters and continue the work of the rush of water from the reservoir for 30 minutes.”
Fires in Qatar are an all-too-common occurrence, due to factors like poor electrical wiring, the searing summer heat and user error.
The vast majority of the time, large fires here are put out quickly, with minimal injuries.
Mall fires
But in crowded places such as malls, the consequences of such blazes can be disastrous. Not surprisingly, the new fire trucks are first being tested at Villaggio Mall, where 19 people were killed in 2012 in one of Doha’s deadliest fires on record.
At that time, 13 children, four staffers and two firefighters died from suffocation after being trapped in an upstairs daycare at the mall.
An official investigation into the fire found that poor coordination between government agencies responsible for responding to the fire played a major role in the tragedy.
It stated, for example, that the mall was not properly equipped to deal with the fire and that Civil Defense did not know children were trapped in the mall until 30 minutes after they arrived on the scene.
Final testing phase
According to Maj. Hussain Aman Al Ali, the new fire trucks will be permanently present inside of shopping complexes and will be used by security personnel in the event of fires until Civil Defense teams reach the site of the blaze.
The vehicles are in the final modifications phase and are expected to be rolled out in the next couple of months, he added.
Would the presence of the new trucks make you feel safer? Thoughts?
They might give a bit more reassurance in some malls with 1 floor such as Villaggio, Hyatt Plaza, etc however I cant see how this machine would be any use if there was a fire on the top floor of City Centre etc. is it restricted to 1 floor only?
Wouldn’t be too difficult to have one on each floor
Depends whether or not they have a key-operated firemans elevator in which the vehicle will fit. In the event of a fire-alarm sounding all normal elevators should automatically stop at the nearest “safe” floor and open their doors or go down to ground floor and open their doors.
these have been around ages
looooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllll
Best. Post. Ever.
“Used by security personnel in the event of fires until Civil Defense teams reach the site of the blaze”??!!
pretty good idea, even if they can’t be fully relied on alone, at least they can get a head start to avoid a fire getting out of control, which can happen in a very short time
It will be useless if the security personnel ( who are supposed to use them ) do not have sufficient training for fire fighting and emergency evacuation , which I doubt they qualify for,considering their tiny salaries. I hope parents can keep their curious kid’s away from these vehicles to avoid any possible injury.
will they be available for rides between fires for the fat and lazy ?
That statement from the MOI….. Can have English person who speaks it with a time of a proofread with it throughout all their statements so that for the future by 100% of the time?
A high profile display of “doing something” that merely masks the inadequacies of the Qatari building approval process which has allowed poor layouts, unsuitable materials, poor quality of construction, and inadequate fire-fighting installations in buildings (not just malls) in Qatar, compounded by the ignorance of what constitutes facilities management and the arrogance of owners as so terribly demonstrated at Vilaggio. I sincerely hope that every-multi-floor mall has a firemans elevator in which it fits because they are the only elevators that don’t automatically stop or go down to ground level in the event of a fire alarm sounding. Can you think of any other country that has fire fighting vehicles inside it’s malls? No, they have static installations with built in redundancy.
Same thought I had. Fire suppression systems including sprinklers, fire hoses, and strategically placed extinguishers should be adequate. They say security will use these, but will they be trained to put out fires? Will they even be given the authority to use them? Will they be locked up somewhere so that kids won’t climb all over them, with only one person, who is conveniently not there when an incident occurs, having a key? Let me guess. In Villaggio they’ll be parked at Gondolania where one can buy tickets to ride them.
Btw how does such vehicles go across multiple floors? Do the malls will now have to install big enough lifts/escalators/elevators? And even if someone comes back with an answer that there could be one such on each floor, it would then mean that in case of an event, we will have a situation of some vehicles idling while only one of them can be used.
Whatever, something is always better than nothing. So appreciate the fact that mall fire safety is being looked at more seriously.
Just one more point, can the mall management pls let the kiosks / furniture exhibitions in the lobbies leave space for such fire vehicles to move in quickly and easily?
Fools and their money
Wow, is it April already?
If they will help and save someones life, who are we to judge?
A really good idea and good to see some positive thinking. These new vehicles need to be manned by properly trained people not security guys in their spare time, and can be used to maintain a decent alert level to bad practice in the malls particularly smoking at coffee shops which is becoming endemic – it seems even after all the lives lost some locals just refuse to accept common law, and feel they are bound by some special law allowing them to do whatever they want in their country. Sorry rant over, but it does need cutting out.
Just take the old fire truck out for a drive and hose down someone smoking in the coffee shop. Problem solved, right?
This is a good idea. Congrats. But I sincerely hope builders stop using cheap Chinese stuff for fabrication and wiring.
too bad the “electric” fire truck is made in china!
This truck will only be able to put out the ashtray fires of those who continue to smoke in the malls. Funny they buy golf cart fire trucks but fail to enforce a health and safety law.
You used the wrong image DN…………………..the revised version just announced.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”…appreciate their efforts and motives, even while criticizing the shortfalls.
Horse power; # cylinders; top speed; 0-100km/h in sec. Data PLEASE