Fire in the hole!

Yesterday morning started off just like any other day, with my wife and I rising for morning prayers. It was Monday, and we were both tired from had a funfilled weekend, so we thought of catching a few winks more before getting ready for work.

About 6.45 am, the sky appeared still very gloomy and it soon started to pour cats and dogs - a full scale thunderstorm that was about to make the morning very eventful. My car alarm went off several times before, so I had to go down and reset it. By this time it was 7.45 am. I happened to be on emergency standby duty for the manufacturing facility I work at, so I checked the pager for good measure. There were three pages and the message was horrifiying - the plant was on fire!! Apparently the lighting had sparked a fire in our storage facility!

Needless to say, I pulled on my jeans and raced to the emergency coordination room to handle the situation. This was not a simulation. It was the real deal. A real fire, with real people and assets at stake. By 7.30 am all the emergency team members were present, and two fire fighting teams were at site ready for action. By 8.00 am, the police and another 5 fire fighting teams were at site. We even had police helicopter take one of our staff up for ariel view of the situation.

The state secretary of defense also dropped by to asses the situation. I recall a moment when he looked around the emergency coordination room and asked if all the entire emergency response team (ERT) consisted of local people and seemed impressed when our managing director told him it was. He left after being satisfied that the situation was being well managed.

Thanks to the emergency preparedness of the site teams, and the collective effort of the authorities and staff, we managed to contain the fire and avert a major disaster. An all clear was called at 11.21 am after confirming that the fire was put out completely. Its comforting to know that the authorities did react quickly when required.

As always, there are many lessons to learn from such an event. I expect we will be running through a post mortem of the events that occured. Still, I am glad to have been part of a successful emergency response. Malaysia boleh!