Muscat: With the onset of summer, Oman's Civil Defence authorities are urging people to be vigilant against fire mishaps that claimed a total of 53 lives during 2009.
Electrical short-circuiting was the principal culprit behind roughly a third of all fire incidents reported across the sultanate last year, totalling 2946 cases, according to statistics released on Sunday.
Leaking cooking gas cylinders, negligent disposal of burning cigarette butts, and igniting cars, also contributed to significant fire mishaps last year.
The populous Batinah region of the sultanate, one of the country's fastest growing industrial zones, accounted for a disproportionately high volume of the fire mishaps.
The province of Sohar, home to the country's biggest industrial port and a major free zone, gained top billing as the most fire-prone in the sultanate with a total of 475 cases.
Significantly, authorities also reported a dramatic drop in the number of arson cases involving the use of flammable fuels last 2009.
Arson attacks slumped from a record 987 cases in 2008 to a mere 28 incidents last year, a fall attributed to an intensified crackdown against arsonists by the Royal Oman Police.
