Urban Fires in Bangladesh: Accident, Arson, Negligence, or Structural Homicide?

Dr Adil Mohammed Khan:

Fire incidents have become a grim routine in the cities of Bangladesh. Each blaze takes lives and destroys property within moments, only to be followed by another tragedy soon after. Public outrage rises and fades, but the underlying causes remain unchanged.

Are these fires accidental, deliberate, or simply the product of negligence? In truth, many are the outcome of structural homicide-failures rooted in poor planning, unsafe building designs, weak governance, and the near-total absence of accountability.

Dhaka and other major cities have grown rapidly but without the fire safety infrastructure such density demands. Regulations exist on paper, yet enforcement is rare. Building owners, developers, and authorities continue to trade responsibility for profit and complacency.

Until fire safety is treated as a civic right rather than an afterthought, urban Bangladesh will remain at risk. The flames that consume our cities are not natural disasters-in most of the cases, they are man-made, and hence preventable.

*Urban Fires Incidents on the Rise: Exposing the weaknesses in our fire safety systems
A fire broke out at a building on Kalshi Road in Mirpur-11 on 24th October, having a damage of around 2 crore for a readymade garment factory.

Before that three major fire incidents occurred across the country Within just five days. On October 14, a fire broke out in Rupnagar, Mirpur; a day later, another occurred at the Chattogram EPZ; and on October 18, yet another fire erupted in the cargo area of Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

After a blaze in a specialized industrial area like the Chattogram EPZ, a similar disaster at such a highly sensitive location as the airport has raised deep concern. In both incidents, it took roughly a full day to completely extinguish the flames.

Although no lives were lost in those two, the damage to property was immense and irreparable. However, the fire in Rupnagar, Mirpur claimed the lives of 16 people.
These three major fire incidents have sparked widespread public discussion and fear.

Once again, they have exposed the weaknesses in our fire safety systems, as well as broader failures in planning and management. This calls for a deep, comprehensive analysis of our urban planning, building design, and fire safety mechanisms.

Fire in a Very Important and Critical Area like Airport: Where were the Safety Measures According to reports from various media outlets, the catastrophic fire at the airport’s import cargo village was made worse by a lack of effective coordination among the responsible agencies. Had the security and monitoring teams been alert and active from the start, the fire might have been brought under control much sooner.

Many firefighters have said that due to the airport authority’s mismanagement, they were unable to perform their duties effectively. If the goods had been moved away quickly, firefighters could have sprayed water closer to the source of the fire, preventing it from spreading and reducing the scale of destruction.

An international-standard airport must have efficient fire suppression systems in place-but Dhaka’s airport does not. The authorities responsible for airport operations demonstrated severe mismanagement and lack of coordination, which contributed to the disaster.

This is not the first time a fire has occurred at the Dhaka airport area. After a previous incident, the Fire Service made several recommendations, but those were never implemented. Had they been followed, this level of loss could have been avoided.

*Urban Fire Incidents: Accident or Act of Arson
At the same time, there has been a strong public demand to investigate these fires seriously, considering the possibility of sabotage. The owner of garment factory in Dhaka’s Mirpur-11, has alleged that the fire incident that embezzled her factory, is a deliberate act of arson.

The interim government has stated that if any credible evidence of sabotage or deliberate arson is found in the airport cargo village fire or other recent incidents, the government will take immediate and firm action. These are very serious concerns that must be investigated properly to protect our economic lifelines of our country.

Urban Fires: Similar Stories having lack of Fire safety measures and Fire Safety Plan All our fire stories sound eerily similar. The seven-story building that caught fire in the Chattogram Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) did not have a fire safety certificate.

There were flammable chemicals stored inside, without proper arrangements to extinguish a chemical fire. The setback distance between buildings was inadequate, making it impossible to control the fire from both sides.

The Fire Service has stated that “an application for a fire safety plan was submitted for the CEPZ factory, but the inspection had not yet been carried out according to procedure. The accident happened before that.” But this is exactly how such disasters occur. How could a factory operate for so long without a fire safety plan?

This is how thousands of factories in Bangladesh continue to operate day after day, ignoring the safety of workers and putting countless lives at risk.

Death of Poor Workers in Factory: Act of Structural Homicide
Though no one died in the Chattogram EPZ fire, the tragedy in Rupnagar’s Shialbari area of Mirpur claimed around 16 lives at a chemical warehouse and garment factory. How could such extremely hazardous chemical warehouses operate in the heart of the capital without proper approval or fire safety measures?

This massive loss of life resulted from the failure of multiple state agencies to monitor and enforce the law-it is therefore not just negligence but a structural killing.

The deaths of workers in the Mirpur Shialbari fire must be recognized as a case of structural homicide. The culprits must be swiftly identified and brought under the law to ensure the highest punishment. The state must also take urgent steps to ensure proper medical treatment for the injured and adequate compensation for affected families.

Negligence of Urban Planning and Rule of Law
The unchecked establishment of dangerous factories, the absence of fire licenses and safety certificates, lack of fire suppression systems, the unauthorized use of buildings, and the failure to follow urban master plans-all these have forced impoverished workers to die helplessly in fires.

Factory owners have blatantly disregarded city planning, construction, and industrial laws. Exploiting poverty, they compel workers to risk their lives in unsafe environments. Only if the owners responsible are brought to justice can we begin to reduce fire risks.

Authorities must be responsible for their obligations
District administration, police, RAJUK, Fire Service and Civil Defense, Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, Department of Labour, Department of Explosives, and Dhaka North City Corporation-all these authorities were responsible for ensuring safe working conditions. Had they fulfilled their duties properly, lives could have been saved.

Therefore, this incident must be treated as a structural and negligence-based homicide, and the responsible officials of all concerned agencies must be held accountable.
A corrupt network within the administration has allowed factories to be set up haphazardly across Dhaka and other cities. It is now urgent to identify and dismantle this network.

Even fifteen years after the Nimtoli fire tragedy, why have the chemical warehouses still not been relocated to a safe industrial zone? The government must immediately form a commission to determine the necessary course of action.
Life of a worker worths only 2 lakh taka?: Law must be Amended Under the current industrial laws, the compensation for a worker’s death in an accident is only two lakh taka. Unless this outdated law is amended and negligence-related deaths are legally treated as homicide, the endless procession of worker deaths will not stop.

Business associations have claimed that the airport cargo village fire caused losses worth about 12,000 crore taka, burning a huge quantity of pharmaceutical raw materials. The incident has raised concerns among foreign partners about product security in the port.

Repeated fire incidents have created anxiety in our pharmaceutical, garment, and other industrial sectors. The fear of sabotage-and of dying helplessly in a fire-has deeply unsettled people.

Fire Safety Measures should be ensured in Buildings and Complexes We should prepare buildings, infrastructures and complexes in urban areas for fire safety. We should mandate automatic sprinkler & standpipe systems for all high-rise, industrial, and large-storage buildings.

We must strengthen and enforce FSCD (Fire Service & Civil Defence) clearance & periodic inspection and make clear legal penalties for non-compliance and a public registry of compliance status.

We should compel life-safety systems (hardwired fire alarms, smoke control, emergency lighting, marked egress) and regular drills (quarterly or biannual by occupancy risk). We must regulate hazardous storage & cargo (warehouses, airport cargo, EPZs) with special permits, separation distances, and mandatory automatic suppression with regular monitoring.

Accelerated inspection programs should be done for vulnerable existing stock (markets, RMG factories, chemical stores, informal workshops).

Government must Act Appropriately: Building and Fire Code should be Enforced The state must enforce the Building Code and all relevant construction and industrial laws to ensure fire safety in factories.

Fire suppression systems in buildings and factories must be modernized and made effective. No one has the right to endanger the lives of workers and nearby residents by setting up factories randomly outside designated industrial zones or ignoring the master plan.

To ensure the safety of workers and residents, the government must now take strong, decisive action to stop this deadly trend. Government must act and there is no hiding place for the State in this regard.