The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) is stepping up efforts to acquire lands to establish Fire Colleges and Training schools in all 16 regions to ensure adequate manpower development for the service.
This will help the service accept and train more persons which will enhance the country’s fire security systems.
The Chief Fire Officer, Julius Kuunuor, said this at the GNFS’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in Accra as part of its corporate celebration of the Yuletide.
Also, the service was in the process of signing a memorandum with some local universities for the training of fire personnel in relevant fields from undergraduate to postgraduate programmes.
That, he said, would help the GNFS to redirect the present paradigm of firefighting to one that was better focused on addressing the dictates of the service objectives.
The service held on the theme: ‘We Worship a Faithful God Psalm 36:5’’, was attended by retired Chief Fire Officers (CFOs), directors, fire service council members, chaplain generals, regional fire officers and civilian employees of the GNFS.
It was a joyous mood with the Fire Service Band providing the music as staff danced and sang along to express their thanks to God.
The CFO of the GNFS, Julius Kuunuor, said everyone had the right to celebrate God’s gift of goodness, mercy, grace, love, peace and joy, especially in granting us the gift of life to this day”.
He said the season presented them with the opportunity to re-examine, take stock and evaluate their lives and achievements from the beginning of the year to now.
Mr Kuunuor said the service had put in place Emergency Contingency Measures that would put all service personnel on alert and ready for any emergencies which might occur before, during and after the festive season.
He said already, fire safety teams had been deployed to intensify fire safety education in marketplaces, churches/mosques, institutions and all places of assembly.
“We are also aggressively using traditional and social media to propagate the good news of fire safety,” he said.
He noted that their statutory function was to organise public education programmes that created and sustained awareness of the hazards of fire and heightened the role of individuals in the prevention of fire.
Mr Kuunuor explained that the service would undertake intensive house-to-house as well as radio and television programmes on fire safety precaution campaigns nationwide.
“The service, therefore, intends to undertake a public-private partnership arrangement to ensure that various homes across the country are certified to be able to minimise fire outbreaks, loss of lives and property,” he stated.
He mentioned that the service was collaborating with the Ghana Water Company to ensure a constant supply of water through the construction of Fire Hydrants and the Drilling of mechanised boreholes for firefighting.
“We are determined to sustain the public fire safety education campaign to ensure that fire outbreaks are further reduced to a single-digit percentage within the coming year,” he added
The Chairman of the Council for the GNFS, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, implored GNFS to stick to their pledge of acquiring lands to establish fire training schools across the country.
He said it was the responsibility of the board “to make sure that the service is judged to deliver on its mandates and pledges”
“It is good to acquire lots of lands but it would be better if the lands are protected and registered and best if you can develop it into other things. And so we charge you to make sure that this is done,” he stated.
He explained that the government was procuring intervention vehicles to assist the service to navigate its way through traffic to arrive at emergency scenes on time.
“Government is also making efforts to procure more fire engines, command vehicles, ambulances and other utility vehicles to augment your operations. It is our hope that all this equipment shall arrive in the country by next year,” he added.
Source: Graphic
