Taipei City Councilor Wang Po-yu (王博昱) yesterday called upon the Taipei Fire Department to review current firefighting methods and to ensure that its equipment is up to date.
He also asked the city government to amend legislation to make fire insurance mandatory in public places.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Meanwhile, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
He also asked the Rules and Regulations Commission (
The calls were made in the wake of a fire that broke out on Saturday in the Tungkao Parking Tower (
The tower is a 24-hour private facility located behind the SOGO department store at the intersection of Chunghsiao East Road and Tunhua South Road.
Although nobody was injured in the blaze, around 60 cars were destroyed in the city's first major parking tower incident.
According to Huang Chen-shou (
The police however, have not finalized their investigations.
Inspecting a privately-owned public parking tower on Chungching North Road and a municipal parking tower on Pateh Road yesterday, Wang said Saturday's blaze raised serious questions.
"First, I'm very curious to know why it took the fire department four hours to extinguish the blaze. How long would it take if there were a bigger fire? The director himself should seriously review the rescue efforts or consider stepping down," Wang said.
Second, firefighters should be constantly developing their firefighting knowledge and skills, he said. "There are different kinds of fires and many ways to extinguish them," he said.
"Take Saturday's blaze. The firefighters should have worked together with the tower manager to close down the exits and entrances of the unmanned, airtight tower to help the tower's carbon dioxide fire extinguishing system work more effectively. Instead, they simply doused the fire with water," he said.
Wang then called upon the city government to make fire insurance mandatory in public places.
"Where do you expect the car owners to turn when something ... like this happens and the facility is not insured and the owner is nowhere to be found?" he said.
The facility's owner, Lee Mou-tsung (
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