NFA sets the record straight
National Fire Authority
A lot of speculative comments have been made about National Fire Authority (NFA) not having water in water tanks of the fire trucks when they respond to fire incidents. Referring to the Fiji Sun “Sunonline” comments on Friday, 5th June 2020 (Pg 12), NFA chief executive officer Puamau Sowane states that it is important for people to understand that fire trucks hold water every time they respond to fire scenes.
A Harun Khan posted online “why does the ‘no water sound familiar? These fires are not putting out fires most times. They must be ready at all times including having loaded trucks and making sure all hydrants are ok” and a Naaz Judd posted “How hopeless was that, that the fire truck had no water…now that’s something to think about!
Replying to the Facebook comments, Mr Sowane stated that while we respect people’s personal comments, we will not allow them to tarnish the image of NFA as every firefighter does their level best to contain any fire and are always ready to respond to any emergency.
“Our firefighters do their best when it comes to responding to any fire emergency or rescue. Every fire truck is ready with water in their water tanks to respond as soon as they are alerted of the fire incident.” Mr Sowane clarified that Rakiraki Fire Station has two fire trucks and both have 2000 litres tank capacity each. It is also important to understand that the fire trucks are equipped with 38mm and 64mm diameter size hoses. The first team arrived on the scene and seeing the intensity of the fire, the team quickly connected their 64mm fire hose to commence their firefighting from the front of the burning building. However, the firefighters, entered the building and despite donning their breathing apparatus, were fronted with heavy smoke backed by strong winds which blinded their path and resulted in the team relocating to the back of the building to effectively attack the fire.
For Rakiraki, it was very unfortunate that the water supply pressure at that crucial moment was too low and inadequate to support the fire crew’s effort to extinguish the fire. NFA also acknowledged with much gratitude the support of the stakeholders with water tankers in Rakiraki during the incident in the past week. Mr Sowane said that people should know that hoses connected to the water tanks are not ‘garden hoses’ but are 38mm or 64mm fire hoses which are operated under high pressure.
“The hoses firefighters used are not garden hoses people use at home. Water output rates are high from these hoses and the tank empties in quick time and support fire hydrants at suitable flow rates is crucial during firefighting.”
It should be understood that using a 64mm fire hose at an output rate of 125 litres per minute and 750kpa pressure, the total tank capacity of 2000 litres is discharged within 16 minutes.
Another comment posted by Dharmendra Kumar was “Very ironic, Rakiraki, a town that gets inundated with water every time there is a heavy rainfall does not have water for emergencies. This one is purely on the authorities”.
Referring to the comment above, Mr Sowane said that we do not store flood or rain waters that can be used during emergencies, but we rely on water in water tanks and hydrants during the time of fire emergencies.
The fire in Rakiraki town started from a kitchen area while someone was cooking. Mr Sowane said that such fire incidents could have been avoided if only precautions were taken.
While people are very critical of issues that they have little knowledge of, they fail to acknowledge the difficult and life-threatening operating conditions faced by our firefighters. The Rakiraki Fire incident saw our teams climbing up heavily burglar-barred buildings but their determination to stop the fire from spreading to the whole block of adjoining buildings did not deter them from continuing their work until they contained the fire from further spread.
Challenges that our firefighters face are life threatening when they have to cut through burglar bars to enter the building at high levels or in other incidents where there are toll gates where our large fire trucks or fire tanker are not able to enter the area to effectively support our firefighters at the scene or narrow access that restrict our fire trucks from entering to provide the necessary equipment and support for our firefighters.
Mr Sowane urges the public and business communities to start reviewing their fire safety strategies to prevent the unnecessary occurrence of fires in their property and to work with NFA to take advantage of the fire safety and fire prevention services offered.
Mr Sowane re-iterates that fire safety is everyone’s responsibility and that simple fire safety precautions should be strictly adhered to at all times to avoid unnecessary fire related damages to properties.
He also advises the public to call 910 as soon as they see smoke or fire in order to give NFA and its firefighters the best and quickest opportunity to respond to the fire incident. Every life and property matters and everyone has a role to play to ensure that our properties, businesses, homes are fire safe.