Fire safety authorities plan tougher regulations on storage units following Ngau Tau Kok fire

Fire department reveals plans to bring in stricter measures after last year’s killer blaze in Ngau Tau Kok, as well as a specialist mountain rescue team

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Fire Services Department show off their new drone, part of a Mountain Rescue Support Team. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 10:45pm, 23 Jan 2017Updated: 7:22pm, 25 Jan 2017

The city’s fire safety authorities plan to introduce stricter regulations for mini-storage outlets, following an inferno that claimed the lives of two firemen last June.

Revealing the plan yesterday, the Fire Services Department chief Daryl Li Kin-yat said he hoped the bill would be tabled in the Legislative Council by April and implemented by the end of the year.

Li told the Post the proposed measures could help the authority understand the number of mini-storage facilities operating in the city and bound the operators to ensure customers’ safety.

“We are now relying on the existing ordinance to ensure the safety of the mini-storage facilities ... we can ask the operators to implement some management measures,” Li said.

“There should be some form of control regarding what items can be stored in the storage units. The licensing regime is only a way forward.”

Li stressed it was a preliminary consideration and a working group headed by the Security Bureau was studying ways to improve safety and operations of the industry.

The storage industry welcomed the proposed measures and said it could restore customers’ confidence.

In response to the fatal, fourth-alarm fire in Ngau Tau Kok last year, the department called for operators to comply with stringent regulations, including keeping a 2.4-metre gap between storage zones and keeping windows open, in a bid to prevent the quick spread of fire and obstruction of rescue operations.