96 sq. feet. Place a bed in that room and there’s almost no space for a person to move around in. It is hard to imagine how four people can share that room, but that is what families do when they live in the slums. Larger settlements can contain more than 1000 such residences often with no spaces between them. When unsafe cooking facilities, lit cigarette butts, makeshift electrical wiring or arson leads to fire in one room, it quickly spreads.
Our community fire prevention project will promote changes in attitudes towards fire safety. We will do this through two initiatives- partnering with the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense, to help communities learn about ways to prevent fire, and collaborating with the community and the Fire Service to help establish simple firefighting mechanisms for when fires break out. These initiatives will be based in Dhaka city.