Precautions against fire outbreaks are some of the relaxed procedures at both places of work and residences.
Professional counsel from personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) is often ignored with impunity. Smoke detectors and fire alarm systems are largely absent in most offices and residences.
Firefighters and the counsel they render are only remembered when there is a fire outbreak.
Within a spate of a week, Accra recorded two fire outbreaks in the passing week, one of them leaving in its trail two fatalities.
The Opera Cinema fire destroyed property running into thousands if not millions of cedis, although no life was lost.
Given the reckless manner in which we manage our homes and offices, fire outbreaks can be serious when they occur. We are fortunate anyway that such occurrences have been rare but we could be pushing our luck too far.
The fatal fire at the Korle Bu Police Barracks a couple of days ago was a painful one but leaves us with an important lesson.
We have learnt from the report about the fire in yesterday’s issue of this paper that rescuers were able to save some lives by breaking the glass window of one of the rooms, in which a family was sleeping. A 60-year-old grandmother and her grand daughter were not lucky having been declared brought-in-dead by medical staff at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
We recall a fire officer’s advice against burglary proofs which have today become features of residences especially, in urban settings.
In the case of fires, these obstacles make it near impossible for trapped persons to escape or for them to be saved by firefighters.
Residents are torn between two situations i.e. whether not to have such burglary proofs and be exposed to robbers or have them and virtually live in an iron cage from which rescue operations become impossible when the need arises.
Under the circumstances, we are at a loss as to how to handle the situations. Perhaps construction engineers should think out an alternative safety arrangement to the burglary proof system.
With the enforcement of bylaws and others, a rather challenging task in our settings, fire safety requirements enforceable by personnel of the GNFS, remain only on paper, completely unenforceable.
Fire hydrants have been covered by new structures making access to water in case of emergency, troubling.
Fires are real and happen at anytime hence the need to abide by fire safety precautions as spelt out by the GNFS. The reason why people disregard the safety precautions is because, they think fires rarely happen, an unfortunate and an unwise stance.
The authorities may have to consider the creation of fresh fire hydrants especially in Accra and the enforcement of the safety bylaws.
We join the Police Administration in consoling the bereaved families at the Korle Bu Police Barracks.