The fire brigade department, Rawalpindi, is facing acute shortage of equipment due to lack of attention by the city district government, employees at the department say.
The sources said that posts of a district officer and two head firemen were lying vacant at the department for a long time and the administration had been unable to fill up these vacancies until now.
The employees complained that they did not have uniforms, boots, gas masks and hydraulic lift for handling the fire. “The only thing which can extinguish fire is water. It is also not easily available in the department,” an employee, requesting not to be identified, said on Saturday. “If the tankers are needed to be refilled, they have to go far away and only five fire brigade tankers are available in the department to handle any emergency situation,” he said.
The residents of the area also complained about the negligence of CDG, which they said, had brought complete chaos to the fire brigade department. Due to vacant post of DoFF for the last one and half year, the onus of additional responsibilities was on the shoulders of Rescue 1122 DCO Dr Abdul Rehman, the sources said They said the workers of fire brigade had no proper facilities to handle critical situation for saving the lives of citizens. They had to risk their lives but the department was doing nothing in this regard, they added. Three of five tankers had been spared for the head office at Liaquat Bagh while the remaining two had been handed over to the sub offices at Pirwadhai and Satellite Town, the sources said.
The fire brigade department had no arrangement for water supply as it totally depends upon Wasa, the further said. Uniform allowance is Rs 1,300 and emergency allowance is Rs 4,000 for the Rescue 1122 employees but in the fire brigade department, the firefighters get Rs 100 as uniform allowance only.