Cooking gas cylinders will be banned in all new buildings in the country under the updated UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice, a senior official told Gulf News on Wednesday.
New buildings will not be issued permits if they allow occupants to use LPG cylinders, in an attempt to reduce fire accidents caused by gas leakage and cylinder explosions, Gulf News quoted Lt. Col. Jamal Ahmad Ebrahim, director of Preventive Safety Department at the General Directorate of Dubai Civil Defense, as saying.
“Buildings have to offer centralized gas pipe network if they allow occupants to use cooking gas. Or else they should use electric cookers,” he reportedly said on the sidelines of the 4th International Conference on Quality Assurance for Sustainable Construction Materials.
Ebrahim, who headed the team that drafted the updated version of the Fire Safety Code, reportedly said the Civil Defense authorities had already begun implementation of this rule. “If you check the latest buildings in Dubai, you won’t see them using gas cylinders.”
However, stricter and wider enforcement of the rule is expected across the country when the code will be officially implemented, the report said.
Dubai Properties reportedly banned LPG cylinders in Al Khail Gate following a blast caused by gas leakage in an apartment which resulted in a woman’s death.
According to Lt Col Ebrahim, the code will come into force by the end of this month itself. Earlier reports had said the implementation of the code had been pushed back to the first quarter of 2017.
“The code has been translated into Arabic and is ready. It is just a matter of getting it released. We are expecting the Ministry [of Interior] to issue the code any time soon in its electronic version also to show the 3D images.”
Hard and soft copy of the code is expected to be made available to the industry.
Pramod Challa, a senior engineer with Dubai Civil Defense, who handled the technical aspects of the code, said the authorities are considering new proposals for alternative solutions to cooking gas cylinders in existing buildings.
“It is difficult to change the system in the old buildings. There are new proposals that the Civil Defense is considering,” he was quoted as saying by Gulf News.
