Public Relations Officer of the Western Regional Fire Command, DO II Emmanuel Bonney, has highlighted some challenges personnel of the Service face in fire fighting.
According to him, though there are fire hydrants in the region, sometimes, the Service faces some water scarcity when water is needed for operations.
This, he said, was a result of water rationing from the Ghana Water Company Limited. Another constraint, DO II Bonney stated, has to do with the lack of access to fire scenes.
He revealed this in an interview with Beach FM.
“We have some fire hydrants, and those that we have have some water running through them. However, because of the water rationalization by the Ghana Water Company, most of the time, when we get to the incidence and if we want to collect water from those hydrants, the water will not be flowing. So that is a huge challenge for us.
You know, that is one of the constraints we have as a service. The more you lay hoses, the less the pressure comes. So if you stand far to lay more hoses and throw the water onto the fire, then you will not get effective pressure.”
“So we advise the authorities at the market, those that control the market, to leave some assets for firefighting and manoeuvring purposes. That has been a huge challenge in almost all our markets.
The cars cannot go through it. If the police want to go through it, we’ll find a problem. If the national ambulance wants to go through, we’ll find problems. The Ghana National Fire Service wants to go through it. Same way we’ll find a problem of entry and deal with the situation efficiently.”
DO II Bonney advocated for intensive education at marketplaces on proper fire management.
He, however, allayed the fears of indigenes, given the rise in market fires in some parts of the country, and vowed that the service is ready to fight any magnitude of fire in the region.
