A fire broke out about a week ago (on October 28) at the Preschool "Plavi Chuperak" on Vjekoslav Kovača Street in Zvezdara. About 16 firefighters participated in the extinguishing. The children were evacuated and there were no injuries.
The parent of a child who attends this kindergarten, who wished to remain anonymous, told "Vreme" that according to the parents' knowledge, after the fire was extinguished, some type of control was carried out, and that the kindergarten continued to work without interruption.
After those events, the children's parents asked a series of questions that were not answered.
Institutions ignore parents
"The biggest problem is that no one answers the questions that parents ask in letters through the Parents' Council. We have not received any response from the director of the Zvedar Preschool, Milica Pavlović, nor from the Secretariat for Education and Child Protection, and for now, not even from the fire brigade," this parent emphasizes.
According to unofficial information from RTS, the fire was caused by neon lighting in the bathroom.
The parent indicates that they are kept in complete ignorance about the cause of the fire, whether the plastic neon lighting overheated or the cause was the electrical installations, which, according to our interlocutor, are faulty due to inadequate maintenance.
No one informed the parents about what was done to eliminate those problems and how it is that now "the facility where the kindergarten is located is safe for children and employees to stay without any interventions."
"Vreme" contacted the "Plavi Chuperak" kindergarten, but they said that they do not give any information and that we should contact the Zvezdara Police Department.
We asked PU Zvezdar what led to the fire in the "Blue tuft" kindergarten, what they did about it and whether the kindergarten is now safe, but we did not receive an answer until the text was published.
Fire to fire
"Prior to this incident, the Parents' Council repeatedly invited the director Pavlović to come to the kindergarten in order to make sure of the very bad condition of the entire facility, but she never responded to that call, but appeared only after the fire", claims our interlocutor.
He goes on to say that parents' fear is heightened due to information that less than a year ago there was a fire in another kindergarten of the same institution in Mirijevo, and after the fire in "Plavo Chuperk" there was also a fire in "Čigra" kindergarten in Konjarnik, but the media did not report on this, this parent claims.
Last year in December, a fire also broke out in the kindergarten "Bubamara" in Meše Selimovića Street in Zvezdara after, according to the media, the electrical installation on the boiler caught fire. Before the arrival of the fire department, and then the teachers took the children out of the building.
What the law prescribes
According to the Law on Fire Protection, Article 6a stipulates that "in order to acquire the knowledge, skills and habits necessary to improve and strengthen positive attitudes and behaviors important for fire protection of children and students, the competent school and preschool institutions are obliged to establish and implement an education program on fire protection within the school and preschool programs."
We asked PU Zvezdar to provide us with the Education Program on fire protection, but we did not receive that answer until the publication of the text.
"The kindergarten does not have those sprinklers that are activated when the sensor detects smoke, which means that there are no such sensors. In this particular case, the sensor was the teacher who felt the smoke, and then the whole team participated in the calm and quick evacuation of the children, for which all the parents are grateful," concludes our interlocutor.
We asked the PU Zvezdar whether it is true that this institution does not have fire sensors that would activate sprinklers when smoke appears, but we did not receive that answer until the text was published.
