In the details, the Iraqi Civil Defense Directorate announced the statistics of the fire incidents that were extinguished by the civil defense men, whether those that broke out inside government buildings, public and commercial facilities, factories, stores, residential homes, agricultural lands and others.
A total of 31,533 fire accidents occurred during 2021, with Baghdad leading the rest of the provinces in the number of recorded fire accidents, according to the official statistics.
The Directorate of Civil Defense counted the number of fire accidents in the government sector with 6,189 fire accidents, while the number of fire accidents in the mixed sector reached 293 fire accidents, while fires in the private sector amounted to 25051 fire accidents.
The most prominent causes of these fire accidents were distributed according to the Iraqi Civil Defense as follows:
1- The electrical short circuit caused 14,201 fire accidents as a result of the fluctuation of the national electric current and the spider networks of the electric wires dangling in private generators.
2- Child tampering caused 6,486 fire accidents.
3- Cigarette butts caused 1,721 fire accidents.
4- Accidents of arson due to an active act amounted to 1,224 fire accidents.
5- Fire accidents due to external spark amounted to 1105 fire accidents.
6- Gas leakage fire accidents amounted to 822 fire accidents.
7- Accidents of fuel leakage amounted to 225 fire accidents.
8- Fire accidents due to clan conflict amounted to 167 fire accidents.
9- Accidents of fire collisions with means of transport amounted to 82 fire accidents.
10- Fire accidents due to self-combustion amounted to 25 fire accidents.
11- Fire accidents due to an explosion amounted to 27 fire accidents.
12 – Fire accidents due to unknown cause amounted to 554 fire accidents.
13- Fire accidents for other reasons amounted to 2599 fire accidents.
And to talk about the reasons for this huge number of fires in Iraq over the past year, the Iraqi researcher and expert in crisis analysis, Safa Khalaf, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia: “The fire scene in Iraq is an integral and essential part of the corruption scene in the country, and the fires have become One of the tools of conflict and competition, concealment of evidence or the delivery of political messages, so the rates of fires are increasing from year to year, to record in the past year an unprecedented number, which is a worrying indication of the collapse of the infrastructure of safety and firefighting tools, in terms of the absence of strict government procedures, and complacency in issues Safety and security at large.
And the Iraqi researcher specializing in crisis analysis continues, listing the background of the series of fires in Mesopotamia, saying: “With the growth of the construction of new buildings, such as real estate, institutions and investments, that do not meet safety requirements, and their owners are not obligated to do so, as well as continuing to use old buildings, and with the increase in The number of residents, the creation of housing units inside homes or illegal construction has increased beyond expectations, in addition to the slums that are now besieging cities and neighborhoods, which are mostly dilapidated buildings that depend on illegal energy feeding, which causes greater loads, and often leads to fires.
The political factor and corruption play a key role in the increase in the annual rate of fires, according to Khalaf, adding: “The struggle for influence, settling accounts, displacing opponents and setting them up, or concealing evidence and documents confirming and proving corruption, which means that there are fires orchestrated by a political actor, as the most It is easy, safe and expected due to its prevalence and habit, and does not leave an inferred trace on the offender, especially those that affect administrative, financial and investment departments in ministries and government departments.
Khalaf added: “There are many incidents that express the severity of government neglect resulting from the bureaucracy of corruption and the competitive interests that pervade the body of the Iraqi state in general, and the chaos of playing with the fates of Iraqis within the struggles to gain influence while ensuring impunity from accountability, and they can be considered national calamities that absolutely confirm the incompetence of the regime. The ruler, and the extent to which it is easy for people to accept their death as a form of collective despair, and to embrace death as psychological consolation and salvation, and the tragic surrender of being a citizen of a looted country.
The prevalence of fire incidents in Iraq, led to its use of political rivalry as a tool within the conflict and the political and economic crisis, and accordingly, as the Iraqi researcher explains, by saying: “On July 10, 2018, gunmen burned dozens of ballot boxes in one of the stores of the Ministry of Trade in central Baghdad to affect the final results. For the elections, as well as economic competition and preventing Iraq from boosting its national production in order to reduce dependence on imports from abroad, whether from Turkey or Iran. Therefore, fires that break out in national investment projects indicate an external victim causing fires, as happened in 2019 when a series of fires broke out. Poultry factories after Iraq’s decision to ban the import of eggs and white meat from neighboring countries.
Meanwhile, armed groups such as the terrorist organization ISIS and armed militias used fires as a weapon to achieve their goals, according to Khalaf, who adds: “As happened in the series of fires that destroyed vast fields planted with wheat and strategic crops in 2019, it is not possible, of course, to ignore climatic causes, the excessive rise With temperatures in Iraq, which extend over many months during one year, it also leads to fires and due to the deterioration of the safety structure in buildings and the use of cheap materials.
This shocking statistic about the number of Iraq fires sparked a wide discussion in various Iraqi social platforms and networks, as many of its pioneers considered that the responsibility does not fall on the influential government and political agencies and the deterioration of infrastructure only, but that the weak community awareness and disregard for public safety also play a role. The country has turned into a mobile fire arena, giving the simplest example of this by throwing lit cigarette butts by Iraqi smokers in public places, for example, where this shameful and dangerous practice caused nearly two thousand fires in the country, according to the statistics of the Iraqi Civil Defense Directorate.
.