The Commanding Officer, Federal Fire Service Gombe State Command, Deputy Controller Ayuba Jonah-Sule, has alerted over the high incidences of fire outbreaks, especially during harmattan seasons.
Jonah-Sule also disclosed that from the 30 fire incidences recorded, 15 were intensive, leading to the death of four victims while scores sustained varying degrees of burns.
The fire service boss made this disclosure to Arewa PUNCH during an exclusive chat, where he detailed the number of incidences recorded from January to November 2023.
According to him, Gombe State lost property worth millions of naira from the incidences, adding that the four deceased were certified dead by medical doctors.
He told our correspondent, “We started January 2023 with very terrible fire outbreaks. We were called to Riyal quarters in Gombe on the 11th. Earlier, on the 10th, there was another outbreak behind the NNPC depot, and you know how sensitive that place is. So, what we did was fight and curtail the spread of the fire such that it did not lead to the fuel dump.
“We recorded more than 30 incidences, but the major ones that threatened lives were 15, and we recorded serious losses ranging from N100 million, N50 million, and above. The four persons who died during the unfortunate incidents were certified and confirmed dead by medical doctors just as we had about 20 persons injured from the different fire scenes,” Jonah-Sule further informed Arewa PUNCH.
While listing some of the challenges faced by the service in the discharge of its duties, he specifically mentioned unstable electricity supply, and indiscriminate use of gas and cylinders which oftentimes contribute to the spate of fire outbreaks in the state.
He stressed that “Domestic fire is another major challenge because they are frequent, going by the calls we received and booked for our statistics and record purposes. We realised that the major cause is erratic electric supply and secondly, gaseous fire relating to cooking gas.
“For the electricity snags, it is caused by high voltage surge. That was why I had to hold several sessions with regional heads of Jos Electricity Distribution Company on the need to check and see how best to curtail such in a bid to bring the situation low and reduce the occurrences,” he noted.
Jonah-Sule, also lamented how most of the outdoor incidences in the state were caused by the indiscriminate dumping and storage of oil and fuel – ranging from Premium Motor Spirit to diesel, even as he insisted that the cost of combating these highly inflammable solutions with chemicals has skyrocketed.
He maintained, “We have a problem with refilling. If we have a serious fire incident we have what is required as backup and we normally call the state fire service times they make themselves available we meet at the fire scene and vice versa they also solicit for our presence.
“The Federal Fire Service has been doing a lot, but with the cost of diesel that is huge, there are times we stay fighting fire for more than three hours at a scene.
“In Gombe, the most reoccurring fire is usually caused by oil-fuel and diesel. This type of fire requires a lot of technicality, and it’s not the type you just start applying water. You need lots of chemicals, and a drum of the chemicals is expensive. At least, for a tanker, we use more than two drums and each drum is not less than N350,000 of the chemicals but the most important thing is that the Federal Fire Service has made the chemicals available for our use.”
On safety precautions during the harmattan period, he urged residents to endeavour to get fire extinguishers for use at home, eduçating that it is expected to be serviced at most every six months.
The controller remarked further, “Many public and private buildings and establishments just build very fine structures without making provision for fire safety equipment like extinguishers. They are not safety conscious. If every house has one or two effective fire extinguishers, there’s no fire that can not be controlled between the first and the second stage. it’s only when it gets to the third, fourth, and fifth stages that it requires the intervention of fire professionals.
By then, the fire is already beyond the use of fire extinguishers.
“Still, I recommend that every household get at least one or two fire extinguishers, and this includes schools, hotels, banks etc we have a unit that will train them on how to use it to avoid unnecessary fire outbreaks,” he pleaded.
