Sharjah Civil Defence Sends Fire Damage Certificates Automatically by SMS and Email

The certificate is free and is the official record families typically need when dealing with the aftermath of a house fire. Under the old process, residents had to request it and visit government offices. The authority said the new service removes applications, extra paperwork and in-person visits altogether.

The accredited digital certificate lists the affected person's details, the address of the damaged home and an itemised record of the losses, according to the authority. Residents only have to provide their Emirates ID number. The rest of the procedure runs through an integrated system linked to identity records, and no supporting documents are required.

Major General Yousef Obaid bin Harmoul Al Shamsi, Director-General of the Sharjah Civil Defence Authority, said families dealing with a fire should be able to concentrate on their safety and immediate needs. "It is therefore our duty to make the services associated with such incidents easier to access and reduce the time and effort required to obtain them," he said.

Al Shamsi described the service as part of a push towards what he called proactive services, in which the authority anticipates what residents will need and delivers it without asking them to complete steps that can be handled digitally. He said the authority would keep developing its services using digital integration to cut administrative requirements.

The practical effect is on timing. Because the certificate is issued as soon as firefighters complete their work, affected families have official documentation of the damage within the first hours after a fire, which the authority said allows them to start any related formalities without delay. It did not say which formalities it had in mind, nor whether insurers or other agencies will accept the digital certificate directly through the same integrated system.

The authority has not published figures on how many certificates it issues each year or how long the previous manual process took.