Fire Hazard Due to Poor Electrical Installations in Indonesia

Fires in Indonesia, are very common and occur as daily events.  MP2KI ( Society of Profession of Fire Protection Indonesia), issued a statistic which indicated that in Jakarta, from 1998 to 2007 there were  an average of 814 fires per year, or 2 to 3 fires per day. Victims per year is 32 people died and 75 people were injured. Losses due to the destruction of property that burned reaching 124 billion rupiahs per year.  In this blog, we will discuss the data in Jakarta alone, which is the benchmark for other cities in Indonesia. 

We see the statistics below that for 2008  data is only for January and February, so it was not included in the calculation of total and average.

Fire Statistics Data in DKI Jakarta by MP2KI, February 2008

Year	Fire	Dweller	Victim		Area	Loss
	Frequency	(persons)	Died	Injured	square mtr	(Rupiah)
2008	98	2,999	2	3	14,650	12,470,000,000
2007	855	29,334	15	63	352,192	168,675,120,000
2006	902	14,449	17	85	349,181	142,992,500,000
2005	742	22,424	37	35	369,210	144,683,575,000
2004	805	24,553	29	83	335,068	119,767,710,080
2003	888	18,657	39	245	16,157,594	109,838,835,000
2002	869	36,744	23	34	898,936	130,947,140,000
2001	772	33,126	18	38	442,362	191,884,910,000
2000	791	7,380	36	71	358,554	74,344,985,000
1999	725	7,092	31	46	234,410	54,030,165,000
1998	796	29,005	76	54	746,335	105,457,000,000
Total	8145		321	754		1,246,200,000,000
Averg	814.5		32.1	75.4		124,620,000,000

Cause of Fire in Jakarta

Fire in Jakarta is still difficult to control, especially in crowded areas. Number of fire victims who lost their shelter in Jakarta from year to year is likely to increase. In 2009, fire victims amounted to 8946 people, the year 2010 recorded 10,826 people, in 2011 raised to 16,424 people, and in 2012 up to August are as much as 13,713 people. Most of the fires occurred due to short circuit. That is the main cause of fires in Indonesia.  Korsleting ( from Dutch " kortsluit " which means " short-circuit " ) is caused by poor electrical installations. According to the former Head of the Fire Department of DKI Jakarta, Paiman Napitupulu, 60 percent of fires that occurred in Jakarta is as a result of a short circuit.

Actually poor electrical installations is not only resulted in an electrical short, but also loose electrical connections, and excessive load on the power source.  All three in the mass media or news, are classified in terms of “korsleting” or " shorted ".
 

Kompas Daily August 24, 2012, citing public policy analyst Trisakti University Yayat Supriyatna as said, that constant fires occurred in Jakarta has to be seen as an extraordinary events. This condition is also a reflection of the messy environmental regulations in Jakarta. Jakarta Capital City of the state should be the benchmark and model for other cities in Indonesia. We see that the Fire Data in 2002 - 2006 from the Fire Department,  specified that short circuit is a major cause of fires in the capital, especially in dense settlements and slums.
 

Let us see Data Triggers, Casualties and losses due to fires in 2002 - 2006 from the Fire Department,  December 2006 in the following :

2008	District		Burned Objects
Month	Jakarta	Frequency	Housing	Public Building	Industry	Vehicles	Others
January	Central	7	3	2	0	1	1
	North	12	5	3	1	1	2
	West	12	5	3	2	1	1
	South	16	5	5	0	2	4
	East	12	9	1	2	0	0
Total		59	27	14	5	5	8
February	Central	5	2	1	0	2	0
	North	10	4	3	0	0	3
	West	11	7	2	0	0	2
	South	12	5	2	0	3	2
	East	1	0	1	0	0	0
Total		39	18	9	0	5	7

If mapped, according to Yayat, generally fires in Jakarta are caused by several factors, namely high population density, weak controls on the growth of new settlements, and lack of community development to be aware of electricity dangers.  All of these raises the possibility of unsupervised negligent and careless electrical installation. In turn, this will inevitably lead to fires caused by short circuit.

In the dense neighborhoods, said Yayat further, supervision of residents will certainly be more difficult because of too overcrowding settlements. Meanwhile, electricity demand is also unavoidable. For that, it's time for the city administration to plunge into the settlement  that has been hit by fire, so as to know its citizens desire. After that, the government must build a strengthening system which not only serves to control the fire at the community level, but also to control the growth of new settlements as well. Revitalization of the community like this is needed to tackle fires in Jakarta. The society must also be involved in the setting. Then the settlement is used as a model for arrangements  of other crowded ones.

In the United States in 2011, 370,000 fires occurred with victims 2,520 deaths, 13,910 people injured, while losses reached 6.9 billion U.S. dollars. The leading cause of home fires in the United States is the stove ( 42 % ), while the second is due to cigarettes. Apparently,  the fire that comes from poor electrical installations are almost never found, because all the wiring and electrical home appliances are installed by a professional installer. So, they really care about the importance of fire prevention before it happens.

Thus, the cost of prevention would be much lower than the cost of losses due to fires that have occurred.  In the UK also there are almost no fire coming from poor electrical installations. Even in Malaysia is the same. Then, we saw how bad the management to control for residential electricity in Indonesia. 

Whereas we know that electrical installation has definitely brought loss of life and property if not installed carefully and by a professional installer. And the victims were getting numerous  from year to year. In dense settlements, ordinary people installs their own electrical installation, and we can do nothing about it. In turn, we are now reaping the disastrous 2-3 fires per day, only in Jakarta.

Actually, the government has a clear and detailed rules regarding general electrical and residential buildings. There are installators who do the installation, there are installation inspectors too which issue installation certificates.  There are legal consequences  for anyone who operates an electrical installation without a certificate. But in dense settlements and slums all is not performing well,  so there are still many poor installations carried out and consequently  the fires will still continue to occur.

Regulation of Electricity for Commercial and Residential Building

• To get the IMB ( Building Permit ), in accordance with Rule 132 of Jakarta governor in 2007 we have to submit a plan : 
• Installation of Electrical Power Lines, the power cable, MCB, outlet and lightings. Electronic Installation, for electronic equipment such as video and Internet data cable 
• Installation of Fire Protection, signed by the Planner of Instalation and Building.

Furthermore, electrical installations must be installed by an installer  who is a member of Association  recognized by PLN ( State electricity company, electricity provider in Indonesia), namely : 

• AKLI ( Electrical and Mechanical Contractors Association of Indonesia) 
• Aklindo ( Electricity Contractors Association of Indonesia) 
• PAKLINA (National Electrical Contractors Association).

According to Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources No. : 0045, 2005 installer member of the Association shall publish Electrical Installation Warranty on electrical installation work is done.

Furthermore, there is PPILN ( Protection Association National Electrical Installation ) whose role is to conduct the testing and inspection of electrical installations of low voltage (100-1000 Volts ) and after all provisions are met, issue a Certificate of Operation for the electrical installation of the building.

In Act No. 30 of 2009 Article 54 paragraph 1 says that "very person who operates an electricity power installations without a worthy Operations Certificate referred to in Article 44 paragraph 4, shall be punished with imprisonment of 5 years and a maximum fine of five hundred million rupiahs "

Analysis of bad electrical installation problem

When we describe, bad electrical installation problems that are the culprit of most fires in Jakarta, are as follows : 

 1. Short circuit  : Sometimes there is a splash (interconnection) between power source and the electrical load. A bad insulation of the splash, will cause the phase and neutral wires intersect  and it will create fire sparks. If the fuse current is proper then the MCB (Main Circuit Breaker) will cut the current off. But when the fuse amperage is large enough and the connecting cable is too small, a large current will quickly burn plastic wrapping of the electrical wires, which can trigger fires. 

2. Excessive electrical load at an outlet : Some people carelessly add several T connectors to be connected to various electrical loads such as lamps, electric irons, hair dryers, and others. The T connectors themselves, when connected in a row, leaving only a small space to be connected to plugs to the loads, which will not be properly and perfectly stuck to the phase and neutral rails. The connectors of the main outlet then will heat up due to heavy load coupled with a bad connection at the plug which will also generate heat. After many days, the electrical loads would be often removed and installed in and out, which would further damage the plug. These connections will continue to accumulate heat, until the cables eventually burn and grab objects around it.

 3. Connections which are loose.  This is the most dangerous and the most common to happen. Cable connections using bolts and nuts, such as at the MCB  is vulnerable to intermittent connection failure. When the bolts a little loose then this will cause sparks and heat. This will even heat the bolt so this will further loosening the bond, and this makes the contact heats up. Eventually, the current will reach the maximum and MCB will drop and power is cut off . MCB drop is an indication of danger, which would not be recognized by the people in the house. So when they raised again the MCB, the cable wire smolder  and a flame will arise from the heat and burn the insulation until the fire occur. Loose connections can also develop on the main outlet used for large loads such as electric irons or Air Conditioner. Loose connection at the main outlet will continue to accumulate heat until a spark occurred and trigger the fire.

Why fires often occur in traditional markets and densely populated settlements ?

 1. The cause of fire in traditional markets and densely populated settlements  is poor electrical installations, due to the careless wiring by unprofessional persons. Bad installation of electric lights in slums, densely populated and traditional markets conducted by laymen will be vulnerable to frequent fire. For example, owner of a new stall in a market will easily  connect  a pair of electrical cable directly to closest outlet or a lamp at a neighboring stall, instead of hiring an officially electrical installator to set a new electrical installation. These people often do not pay attention to the current capacity of the MCB, and often connect with cable trim a bit too long. This  can result in a short circuit which will occur immediately burn the cable insulation. 

2. Plugs,  receptacles and light sockets quality are often very low. People who live in dense settlements has generally low-income, so they will look for the cheapest price available. We can imagine the poor quality outlet, which  is used to supply power to the load  of some lights, fans, etc., so it will generate heat on the cable. Moreover, the cord was low in quality so it will easily burn.

Jakarta areas that are prone to fires and prevention efforts

There are several areas in Jakarta that can be referred to as " subscribing" to fires, such as Tambora district in West Jakarta, Penjaringan in North Jakarta,  Johar in Central Jakarta,  Bukit Duri in South Jakarta, Pulogadung and Cakung in East Jakarta.

The 'champion ' is Tambora district. From January to June 2013, in Tambora fire occurred 24 times, out of 112 fires in West Jakarta, said Head of Operational Section of Fire and Disaster,West Jakarta Sub-Departement, Sutarno in Jakarta, on July 3, 2013. Almost all of them are caused by electrical short circuit. Because of this, joint personnels from Fire Brigade, PLN and municipal police conduct an electrical installations sweeping in 11 urban villages in Tambora district. In this raid they found a lot of offense of electricity theft, and the use of cables, installation and electrical components  with lower quality compared to specification of the PLN’s SNI (National Standard).

On June 23, 2013, approximately 1,050 residents Tambora conducted fire prevention exercises with the Fire Brigade of DKI Jakarta. Afterwards, so far, thanks to the exercises that they follow, the residents can extinguish  16 real fires when they are still small. 

Conclusions and suggestions :

1. Fire caused by a short circuit is very obvious with its causes, consequences, and how to overcome them. But why is this kind of fires repeats  in dense settlements in Jakarta ? Because precautions are still sporadic so far, has not made a thorough, systematic and simultaneous in all areas of Jakarta. Fire prevention exercises such as has been done in several places in Jakarta,  has not touched the root of the problem. Then the city government needs to rearrange dense settlements in Jakarta as the advice of public policy analyst from Trisakti University, Yayat Supriyatna cited earlier in this blog. The city government needs to create a model that will become the standard residential housing that is conducive to the prevention of fires, especially after applying proper installation and how it can be replicated by other settlements.

2. Inadequate Fire personnel  must be addressed immediately. Head of Fire Department DKI Jakarta Paimin Napitupulu ( when still in office,  has not dismissed ) January 29, 2013 complaining about the lack of enough human resources in the institution. Currently, the number of Fire Brigade personnel in Jakarta are only 3,000 people, which is inadequate to serve about 9 million inhabitans of Jakarta. The ideal figure of 6,000 personnel is expected.  This should be considered by the Jakarta City Government seriously.

3. Poor installation is clear and has been proven to cause the most fires in Indonesia, especially Jakarta. It is a sad fact that the fires has left a deep pain in people who became victims. In other countries like the United States it will not happen because from the very beginning, any establishment of a new home has been very closely monitored,  so that eligible electrical installation certificate must be completed.  In Indonesia there are also rules, namely the electrical installation in the home should be done by an installator company that are recognized by PLN. But oversight is lacking, and consequently the carelessness must be paid very expensively. Indonesian people mentality which do many things in negligent and perfunctory way, is very detrimental, because hundreds of thousands of homes in the densely populated Jakarta was already built. Who should inspect each installation point one by one ? One way out is to test the feasibility of electrical installation in every home every 15 years. PUIL (General Requirements for Electrical Installations) 2000 is the primary reference about the appropriateness of the electrical installation which require that electrical installation must be retested periodically, namely 15 years. This is necessary, because in addition to wear of electrical wires and components, there are also additional installation, changes in installation and many others that affect the feasibility of electrical installations in homes.

4. For dense settlements and slums, the government need to increase many more of the raid to areas in order to check the feasibility of electrical installations, and the theft of electricity. In addition to a crime, theft of electricity is also very dangerous because the power cord is only put hanging onto the open wires, and easily create a spark which can lead to fires.