Fire service chief urges Nigerians to be volunteer firefighters

Controller General of the Federal Fire Service, Liman Ibrahim, has implored Nigerians to act as volunteer firefighters to curb the fire menace in the country.

Ibrahim said this during the commissioning of one modern firefighting truck and two ambulances in Zaria, Kaduna State.

The deployed fire truck and ambulances were among the recently FFS acquired 20 life support ambulances and seven fire fighting trucks.

The CG said that if citizens on the ground at fire scenes attended to fire before the arrival of fire firefighters, the excesses of fire menace will be curtailed.

“Nigerians should be auxiliary firefighters like in developed countries as that will help reduce the impact on us and reduce the number of fire outbreak,” he said.

According to him, “In developed countries in a situation where you have 50 firefighters, only 20 are on government payroll while the remaining 30 are volunteers.

“Before the arrival of firefighters, they are already doing something so the fire will jot spread but curtail it to its origin and control it.

“What is important in firefighting is control but many people don’t understand when we are controlling fire.

“When property C is on fire we need to protect property B and D so we lay emphasis more on the properties that are not on fire.

“Because what is on fire is already on fire so we are telling citizens to be auxiliary firefighters”.

The FFS boss stated that the service in collaboration with the state fire service was to mitigate and engage citizens, villagers and traders on how to minimise fire outbreaks and encourage prompt response to outbreaks.

“Fire fighting is everybody’s responsibility so the need for robust collaboration between the centre and states need not be overemphasised,” he said.

He called on the state government to provide an allocation of utility vehicles, recruitment of young firefighters and approval of paramilitary salary structure to the state fire service.

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, said that the asset deployed will boost the capacity of the state fire service to respond to fire disasters.

The governor, who was represented by Abubakar Alhassan, the Executive secretary of Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency, said that there was a need for a rigorous sensitisation campaign in the state.

Emir of Zazzau, Alh. Ahmed Bamalli, also said that at the local council level, sensitisation was ongoing on how to prevent and curtail fire if it occurs.

“This commissioning is the first of its kind in this part of the country and we ensure everyone that we will do our possible best to ensure these machines are well kept.

“We appeal to the fire service that going forward in your next budget that you include the acquisition of utility vehicles to be your next budget.

“We also appeal to the representative of the government to inform the Governor of all said here and we believe he will take action where needed,” he said