Assessment of Fire Risk in the Readymade Garment Industry in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract. Readymade garments are the most important export item from Bangladesh, yet the working conditions and fire safety records in the factories are often not up to the standard. Despite a number of initiatives to curb fire accidents in the garment industry, there are still a significant number of fire occurrences in this industry. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive statistics on the current status of fire provisions and management practices in the readymade garment factories in Bangladesh. Given the management practices (soft issues) are often as important as structural fire safety measures, yet difficult to regulate, this paper develops a fire risk index (FRI), the first of its kind in Bangladesh, for soft parameters in the garment industry. FRI for 60 random garment factories are developed through surprise inspections to understand the current status of fire risk due to inadequacies in the soft parameters. Results show that the mean FRI is 2.8 on a scale of 5.0, which indicates an alarming condition. Locked exit doors, lack of emergency announcement system and lack of fire drills are the three worst performers among the 24 investigated parameters and require immediate attention from the regulators and stakeholders. We also observed a U-shaped relationship between FRI and factory size. Factories that are members of the industry's trade lobby generally have better fire safety practices than the nonmembers. Given the importance of the readymade garment sector in many developing countries, poor fire safety record and lack of information on fire safety, our approach of developing an FRI for the industry can be very useful to understand the immediate concerns and thus to curb fatalities and injuries from fire accidents in this sector.

Fire Safety in the Readymade Garment Sector in Bangladesh: Structural Inadequacy Versus Management Deficiency

“…parameters are graded in a range from 1 to 5 and this grading scheme is available in Wadud et al [19]. …”

“…Detail description of this procedure and the weight value of the 'soft' parameters can be found in Wadud et al [19]. was collected from the BGMEA directory.…”

“…Set in this context, Wadud et al [19] developed a quantitative Fire Risk Index (FRI) for the factories in the RMG sector and systematically assessed fire risk of 60 randomly selected garment factories in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. This research complements and extends the earlier work of Wadud et al in several ways.…”

“…Finally and most importantly, we compare the safety performances of the sample factories with respect to structural (hard) and management oriented (soft) factors and investigate whether there is any relationship between the two. In order to compare the safety performances, we develop a Fire Risk Index (FRI) similar to Wadud et al [19] for the 'hard' parameters. Although the study focuses on the RMG sector in Bangladesh, it is relevant for a wide range of labour intensive industries in the developing and emerging countries, where occupational hazards and safety can often be neglected.…”

An integrated approach of flood risk assessment in the eastern part of Dhaka City

“…The indirect effects can be computed by estimating the daily lack of production in a labor-intensive activity such as the one occurring in the garments factory in Dhaka city. According to recent estimate, nearly 4,500 garment factories are available in Bangladesh, although around 3,500 are currently operating (Wadud et al 2014). Over 70% of these factories are located in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh (Muhammad, 2011).…”