Overview

A simple Google search for “kebakaran gedung” brings up any number of recent news articles on building fires that have happened across Indonesia. Indeed, during February 2022 alone, there were at least five major building fires across the country, two of which took place in Jakarta (specifically on Jalan Gatot Subroto[1] and in the district of Tebet),[2] while the other fires occurred in Bengkulu,[3] Banten[4] and Padang.[5] These incidents seem to suggest that Jakarta, as the country’s largest metropolis, is particularly prone to building fires. Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics (Badan Pusat Statistik – “BPS”) has confirmed this hypothesis and has reported that the number of building fire incidents that occurred within the greater Jakarta area increased during the 2018 – 2020 period from 262 incidents in 2018 to 429 incidents in 2020 in relation to general buildings and from no incidents in 2018 to 17 incidents in 2020 in relation to industrial buildings.[6] While final data for 2021 has yet to be released by the BPS, these existing statistics indicate that building fires are becoming a significant problem in Indonesia, as reflected in the increasing number of building fire incidents that are occurring within the country’s capital city.