Despite a majority of the fire incidents in the city happening due to short-circuits, the Maharashtra Fire Act still does not have a provision for mandatory electrical audits. While drafting a new Act or making amendments to the existing one is a long process, the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) and Electrical and Mechanical Department of the BMC have started working on formulating a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for electrical audits in the civic body’s establishments like hospitals, schools and ward office buildings.

Of the 48,434 fire incidents from 2008 to 2018, the maximum (32,516 incidents) happened due to short-circuits. Even the primary cause of the fire at One Avighna Park building at Curry Road on Friday was a short-circuit. “Short-circuits occur due to multiple reasons like bad maintenance, poor quality of materials and overloading. Though residents in high-rises usually ensure quality and maintenance, there is very little awareness about proper wiring and electrical systems to deal with overloading. More and more electronic appliances like ACs, music systems, LCDs are added and they require high power. The basic system cannot take the additional load and it leads to a short-circuit and fire,” said Rajendra Chaudhari, deputy chief officer (technical) of the MFB. “As fire audits look into aspects like passage space, hurdle-free staircases, status of fire-fighting system; an electric audit can give an idea of the electrical system,” said AV Shenoi, activist in the power sector.