The Russian Emergencies Ministry has adjusted about one-quarter of Russia’s fire safety standards to European norms, the head of the ministry's supervision department, Yury Deshevykh, said on Thursday.
“At the moment, 52 out of 236 fire safety standards have been fully harmonized with relevant European norms, 45 correspond to them in basic approaches and provisions and the remaining 139 are still under revision,” he said.
Russia has an appalling fire safety record. According to the Emergencies Ministry figueres, over 179,000 fires were recorded in Russia in 2010, in which almost 13,000 people died across the country. On average, fires claim the lives of 35 people daily in Russia. In the United States, with a population over twice as large, about 2,600 people died in fires in the reported period.
According to Fire Safe Europe information, about 12 people die in fires in Europe every day, or some 4,400 annually.
Fire safety came into the spotlight in Russia in recent years after a number of deadly fires, including the horrific blaze in the Lame Horse nightclub in the Urals in which over 150 people were killed in December 2009 and a Southern Russian retirement home blaze two years earlier, in which 63 pensioners and medical staff lost their lives.
