He said the country’s fire service has come a long way to be inadequate in fighting fires, especially fires on high rise buildings which are becoming commonplace in the country’s architectural landscape.
DOI Boakye said it is very sad that the GNFS personnel could not douse the fire in Makola on Tuesday, July 5 because the building was a high rise building which needed the service of fire snorkelers to douse it in the central business district.
Aside resourcing the fire service with snorkelers to meet the modern exigencies of the service, DOI Boakye pointed out that there are also new technologies like foam compounds to speedily douse fire disasters in the country.
He bemoaned the fact that Ghana National Fire Service personnel are only combating fire in the country with only manual experience devoid of any technological innovations employed to fight fire ravages in the country as is common in the west.
DOI Boakye therefore debunked claims by the fire personnel deployed to douse the Makola fire outbreak, saying they did not have water in their fire engines to combat the fire. He said no one could make him believe that a fire engine will leave the station without water in it because their duty is in three shifts per day and since water is the mainstay of their business, no fire officer would relieve another officer on duty without filling the fire engine with water.
He made this pronouncement in an interview with Yaa Titi Okrah on ‘Pae Mu Ka’ show Onua TV, Monday, July 5.
DOI Boakye was speaking the back of the Makola inferno that torched a four-storey building called the Hong Kong house which saw the Ghana National Fire Service looking on helplessly without been able to control the fire because they complained of lack of water to douse the inferno in the central business district.
“The fire personnel needed breathing apparatuses to protect them from any smoke related illnesses because of the synthetic materials used in construction nowadays which can have a lifetime effect on the lives of the fire personnel.
“And even where the fire personnel were standing and the height of the building, they needed high fire snorkelers to aid them in combating fire on high rise buildings in the country. They also need chemicals like foam compounds in the engines to help douse fire easily in modern times”, he pointed out to the government.
He said the fire service personnel are hard pressed in modern times to combat fire in the country in many dangerous ways but they are afraid to voice out their grievances due to parochial politics bedeviling the service in the country.
By Barima Kwabena Yeboah|3news.com|Ghana