Assessment of the compliance to fire safety measures in factories around Kampala.

Abstract

Workplace fires is one of the greatest challenge to occupational safety of most industries worldwide. Factories in the recent past have experienced several fire incidences which has led to loss of life, life threatening injuries, loss of business and investment opportunities. Fire safety disaster management systems are not well established in Uganda thus greatly affecting fire safety preparedness especially in factories. This study has assessed the compliance to fire safety measures in factories around Kampala focusing on causes of fire outbreak in factories, fire safety measures in place and the preparedness of factory personnel in case of fire outbreak. Data was collected using questionnaires for both workforce and management. A checklist was also used to collect data from the facilities. During this study, eight factories were visited and 60 respondents including factory workers and managers were interviewed. This study has revealed that factories around Kampala are male dominated (71.67%) and only 28.33% are females. The research has also found that 37.5% of the Factories had experienced fire incidences and these were caused by electrical faults (44%), faulty factory equipment (28%) and 28% was started by workers. On preparedness of factory personnel in case of fire outbreak, the results shows that 56.67% of the factory personnel were trained on fire safety, 73% were aware of availability of firefighting equipment and 68.33% of the respondents knew how to use these firefighting equipment though they were mainly conversant with using fire extinguishers. 37% of the respondents were aware of fire escape routes while 27% knew emergency numbers to call in case of an emergency though they only knew that of police. On existing fire safety measures, this study found that all factories surveyed had firefighting equipment that included fire extinguishers, sand buckets, sprinkler system, fire alarms, smoke detectors and horse reels with fire extinguishers being the most dominant firefighting equipment. A few 2 (25%) of the factories had proper escape routes that included corridors, open windows and doors both in the production and storage areas. 75% of the factories, had adequate distance between buildings with an exception of two factories that were very congested making them inaccessible to fire brigade vehicles in case of fire outbreak. A matrix score was used to determine the compliance to fire safety measures in factories and only 37.5% of the factories were found to be compliant to fire safety measures.