Public Agenda (Accra)
Editor
21 November 2008
editorial
Several issues came to the fore on Monday when there was a fire explosion at Anyaa NIC, near Ablekuma in the Ga West District.
First of all, the issue of irregular siting of buildings, especially warehouses, fuel stations and factories near residential homes is not just illegal; it raises a strong moral case against our city planners and law enforcement agencies.
Eyewitnesses said, the fire started when a Kia truck arrived from Tema in the night to offload its consignment of toys into the warehouse, but the truck arrived a shade late after light had gone off in the whole area. With hindsight, the workers could have waited to have the lights back before offloading the cargo. They didn't. They rather used candles and lanterns to do their work. It may well be that the workers were not aware of the explosives in the warehouse.
But once the fire was started it was expected that if the Ghana National Fire Service had the right infrastructure- fire hydrants at strategic places in Accra, very serviceable vehicles and motivated personnel, they could at least have acted in time to save situation.
No doubt, with the kind of antiquated equipment they are compelled to work with, it would be unfair for Ghanaians to always blame them for acting slowly during fire outbreaks. For instance, when the NIC fire broke on Monday, it had to take fire tenders from Kaneshie, Weija and even Madina to drive through the heavy traffic to get to the disaster scene. They did not only have to brave the heavy traffic, they encountered a very terrible road network, arguably one of the worse in Accra.
This means that the entire vast land, starting from Awoshie to Anyaa and Ablekuma has no fire station. If they even had, the area faces perennial shortage of pipe water. In the past three years water has never flowed in the pipes in some areas. That explains why when the fire tenders run out of water they had to return to Kaneshie to refill and make it all the way back to the scene to continue fighting the fire. With those hindrances, the staff of the Service on duty that day were fighting a losing battle and indeed they failed to rescue a single live soul trapped in the rubble.
The only way Fire Service can effectively bring such devastating fires under control is through the use of helicopters as is done in many countries. This newspaper thinks that we will not be asking too much if we suggested that the government should consider providing one or two helicopters for the Fire Service.
If we quantify the amount of capital, property and lives lost to this economy annually through fire outbreaks, it would make sense to invest in helicopters and state of the art equipment for the Service.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Public Agenda. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
