Rivers Fire Service Too Sluggish -Environmentalist
Edith CHUKU
The incessant fire outbreaks witnessed in some areas of Rivers State, have become worrisome. In less than a week, about four disastrous incidents have occurred.
On Friday, December 30, 2022, there was a fire outbreak that engulfed over 40 rooms at Elekahia, in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state.
Apart from the rooms, goods worth millions of naira were lost in the fire. Barely two days after, some residents were in awe, seeking the urgent intervention of the Rivers State fire service, following another incident that happened at Elelenwo, beside the Assemblies of God Church. Again, property worth millions of naira were lost.
Most recent is the devastating fire outbreak of Sunday, January 8, 2023 at Rumuosi in the Choba axis of Port Harcourt. Though the cause of the fire has not been ascertained, property were equally lost, even as some residents have been rendered homeless.
Speaking with TNN in an exclusive interview shortly after the Choba Police Division mobilized to the scene of the Rumuosi fire outbreak, an environmentalist, Mr. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, advised residents to be more careful this dry season.
The executive director of Youths and Environmental Advocacy Center YAEC-Nigeria also frowned at what he described as the sluggishness of the state fire service.
According to him, “Rivers State fire service is not doing enough, they are very sluggish, often times they say, may be they don’t have fuel, even as we have scarcity of fuel now, they may also say they don’t have fuel in their vehicle to use.
“Often times, they say they run out of water, some other time they complain about their vehicle, other time they tell you they have shortage of personnel, so they are unable to respond to emergency of this nature.
“This is the reason I call on them to see how they can decentralize the fire service, like we have the Port Harcourt station, in airport area you can have fire station there, from the Obiri Ikwere to Choba you can have another fire station around there, from Rumuokoro to Eleme junction, Tank, you can have another fire station, so they can decentralize these processes so that they can respond swiftly to fire incident and minimize the losses of lives and properties when it breaks out.”
Describing the incident as devastating, Fyneface said fire disaster is, “something that is like an annual occurrence, you know dry season is always a period that climate change also demonstrates its capacity, it’s a time that we often have many fire incident.
“In fact, from last year to this year, it seems to have been a kind of good period, because there’s a reduced incidences of fire outbreak in Port Harcourt and its environs, but then, the point remains that people have to be more careful, people have to try as much as they can to prevent things like this from happening.
“ If they are going out of their houses, they should put off their electrical appliances, and it’s also good to have extinguishers so that if there is a fire incident they can respond before the fire service arrives.”
