After a number of fires at restaurants and small zakkyo (雑居) buildings, the fire inspectors have been out performing spot checks at various buildings around town. I saw a large group of them patrolling through Center-gai in Shibuya making sure that buildings did not have fire exits blocked and presumably checking water hoses etc were working.
There are a number of different categories of building in Japan relating to the fire code. Buildings with floor space under a certain size, for example, do not have to install overhead water sprinklers. They may install full kitchens, many operating with gas, and in confined spaces when fire gets out of hand, this can lead to frightening results.
I am sure these fire checks go on all the time, but it is strange to see so many of them just after a few high publicity fire cases. The recent one in Koenji in particular seems to have created a need to show that precautions are being taken.
Do you have good fire prevention systems in your house? What about restaurants and stores you visit?
2 combo carbon monoxide/smoke detectors in the house and a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.
fire code is pretty strict when a commercial place opens about what kind of fire safety stuff is installed, but after the occupancy permit is granted visits are rare.
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Living in a 2 story home we have smoke detectors on both floors. As for businesses they must have fire exits and all the latest fire detection devices, and sprinklers installed. the walmart i used to work at had 2 fires just after we opened up. 1 in the deli and 1 in the meat dept, the sprinklers got em. But we also had one in the roof area above the mgrs. office alarms didn’t go off on that one. We had to clear the store untill the fire dept called for the all clear.