Firefighters put out the fire that razed property in a Nyabugogo business complex on Tuesday. (Timothy Kisambira)
A recent spate of fire incidents in Kigali, Muhanga and Rubavu have raised questions about the country’s emergency preparedness, with some members of the public claiming that firefighters generally delay to respond to alerts. In some cases, such as the fire that gutted Muhanga prison last month, Police had to dispatch a fire-fighting brigade and equipment from Kigali, and even when they finally arrived on the ground, some vehicles had no water to put out the blaze.
And, when a fire broke out in Kigali’s business hub Quartier Mateus, last week, Police reportedly took close to an hour to get to the scene, even as some people claimed they had alerted the Force as soon as the fire broke out. But Supt. Modeste Mbabazi, the Police spokesperson in the City of Kigali, said the Rwanda National Police had responded swiftly whenever an alert was received.
Yet he faulted the public for sometimes delaying to report fire incidents immediately only to do so after they have failed to put out the blaze themselves, and the motorists who he said make it difficult for the fire fighting vehicles to navigate through traffic.
“Nonetheless our fire fighting vehicles are normally at the scene of the incident as soon as possible, sometimes in less than 30 minutes depending on the distance involved,” he told The New Times. Mbabazi added: “Much depends on when we are informed. There are times when people first try to put out the fire on their own and when they realise it is getting out of hand that is when they report. That is what happened in the case of Quartier Mateus, and that is wrong.”
He insisted that police had consistently worked hard to raise public awareness on the need to immediately alert the force in case of a fire outbreak via emergency toll free lines [111 for fire brigade and 112 for emergency calls]. “We continue to communicate this as much as possible but the public also need to play their part and do the right thing whenever there is a fire incident,” he said.
Supt. Mbabazi further said the public can also call 0788-31-11-62 (main Police call centre),0788-31-12-24 (Standby fire fighting desk) or 0788-31-11-63 for the Joint Operations Centre (JOC), which brings together army, police and other security organs.
When one calls the call centre, the operator asks you to terminate the call and then they will call back immediately to collect details. “Once any of those numbers receives a fire alert, the officer in charge of the vehicles will immediately swing into action without wasting time.”
“It’s an issue which we need to address collectively, right from the person at the scene of fire outbreak to the motorists who should help clear the way for the fire fighting brigade,” added Mbabazi. “I suppose it’s an issue of mindset”.
Police are the main custodians of the country’s fire fighting equipments, with four vehicles on standby at the Rwanda National Police headquarters, in Kacyiru, according to ACP Damas Gatare, the police spokesperson. He said the Rwanda National Police was in the process to procure 16 new fire fighting trucks in the current fiscal year, with six of them already on the way.
These vehicles, he said, will be deployed at the provincial level, even as some observers have argued that each district should be empowered with fire fighting capacity. There are 30 districts during all, and four provinces plus the City of Kigali.
Ignatius Mugabo, a fire fighting expert and manager of Mugolds International Fire Risk Management Ltd, concurs with Mbabazi saying sometimes members of the public make it difficult for fire fighters to access fire scenes in time. FULL STORY
