Karachi’s new Mayor Waseem Akhtar should add more snorkels to the city fire department. At present there are three snorkels in the city fire department. When Mustafa Kamal was mayor, two snorkels were imported from Finland for Rs200 million but due to ill-trained staff, the two highly computerized snorkels went out of order and have been lying idle at a KMC workshop ever since. Karachi should also have a rescue 1122 service so that any incident of fire can easily be handled. Sindh government always said that we also established a rescue 1122 but we not see any thing happened to date. Whenever any fire incident happened in the city Chief Minister and Governor always said that we established a rescue 1122 like department in the city. Whenever any incident happened in city there is a fight between Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and Cantonment Board that this area is not ours. Karachi should have one centralized rescue department which works in every area. There is need of latest fire tender, snorkels and ambulance so that they work properly. Each industrial zone should have a fire station.
According to some reports fire tenders at Karachi airport did not have foam, instead water was used to extinguish fire involving chemicals.
I wonder why nobody bothered to check fire tenders and their equipment to see if they were operational and in working condition. Firefighting equipment must be checked to counter any such incident in future. If there is any deficiency, it must be dealt with on priority basis. Fire extinguishers did not work on the upper floors of the buildings and they were faulty and lacked the necessary machinery and spray to control high intensity fire. Print and electronic Media has highlighted several times that the country has no snorkels for firefighting in high rise buildings.
I suggest training fire drills be carried out frequently to ascertain the effectiveness of firefighting equipment. The other important aspect of firefighting is to impart training to firefighters according to the latest techniques. There is a strong need to chalk Firefighting Guide Book in which procedures is describing regarding how to fight all types of fires. Government should also give financial incentive and bonuses to firefighters for their good work. Many fire stations are in deplorable conditions and need improvement. It has once again raised the necessity of acquisition of required equipment and its installation in all multi-story buildings. Therefore we would impress upon the Municipal authorities and Cantonment Board to make it compulsory for all the high rise buildings to have their own firefighting equipment, and train everyone on how to evict from a building during the time of fire as well as taking care that fire exists are provided before approving the building plan to avoid any further loss of innocent lives.
