Intensify fire outbreak campaigns

The year 2009 recorded a couple of fire outbreak cases in the country, notable among them was the burning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Accra and some offices of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE).

The New Year is just 8 days old and has recorded its first case of fire outbreak when fire gutted parts of the Kumasi Central Market last Sunday destroying goods and properties running into several millions of Ghana cedis.

The fire is believed to have started around 4:00 a.m., in the morning and lasted for several hours.

District Fire Officer at the Komfo Anokye Hospital, D.O.C. Agyei Fofie, who led a team of fire personnel to the scene, said the haphazard arrangement of structures at the market made it difficult to put out the fire.

This indicates that we should be expecting more fire outbreaks ahead of us in some weeks and months to come.

If these fire cases are anything to go by, then there is the need to intensify fire campaigns and embark on vigorous sensitization programmes to educate the general public on the attendant repercussions.

It is very disquieting to see these fire outbreaks being caused as a result of our own negligence and ignorance.

Fire outbreaks destroy innocent lives, properties running into several millions of Ghana cedis which end up collapsing businesses and rendering people jobless and homeless.

Beyond all reasonable doubts, there is the need for the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to come out with a monthly or weekly fire sensitization programmes for markets, companies, industries as well as homes.

These fire educational and sensitization programmes will keep the public abreast of the dangers of fire outbreaks.

It would also educate the citizenry to know how they can deal with fire outbreaks on the spot when they occur even before calling on fire fighters and fire service personnel.

The public education on fire outbreak is long overdue due especially in the face of the many fire outbreaks in the country.

We only take delight in making noise about curbing HIV/AIDS because the disease can kill and make lives miserable.

On the contrary fire outbreaks can also kill and render people jobless and even homeless.

There are a lot of people out there who do not even know the essence of a fire extinguisher or how to use the extinguisher so, when there is fire outbreak the on-the-spot means of dealing with the situation gets out of hand.

It therefore behooves the GNFS to line up a number of activities which will aim at sensitizing the general public and corporate institutions on the need to be fire conscious.