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Since the beginning of the year, the media landscape has been replete with stories about fire outbreaks that have gutted some notable state institutions and individual homes across the country. Among these institutions was Accra Academy, one of the premier Senior High Schools in the country.
At the centre pages of today's edition, we have also carried a story about fire outbreak that has destroyed a dormitory block of Boa Amponsem Senior High School at Dunkwa on Offin in the Upper Denkyira East District of the Central Region on Monday, this week.
Also, at Berekum in the Bono Region, fire again gutted a five bedroom house and destroyed property worth several thousands of cedis.
Since we are in the harmattan season, some of these fires are predictable. Our worry though is the fire outbreaks the SHSs are experiencing . According to our information, Accra Academy alone experienced two fire outbreaks within a week. It appears to us that the headmasters and housemasters are not doing their work - constantly engaging the students and letting them know that we are in the dry season and any combustible material can easily catch fire.
SHS students are not kids, and they are also not adults who can be allowed to think on their own. They have to be guided by the school authorities to avoid leaving embers of fires open,especially in the dormitories. They must equally be told to avoid leaving on electrical gadgets they have been plugged into electrical power sources.
The Chronicle is raising these concerns because one dormitory block can contain hundreds of students, and if care not taken and there is a fire outbreak whilst the students are in bed, it can spell doom for this country.
We therefore, call on the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to join hands with the school authorities to properly educate students throughout the country on fire prevention.
The public education should also be extended to the rural areas and individual homes to ensure a fire-free season.
What is happening in Australia should serve as a warning for us to sit up as a country and prevent both domestic and bush fires from emerging at an alarming rate.
There was a severe famine in Ghana in 1983 because we failed to control the spread of bush fires at the time, where thousands of acres of food crops were consumed by the inferno.
Never should this happen again. That is why The Chronicle is calling on the GNFS and NADMO to join the campaign to educate Ghanaians on how to avoid domestic fires and those that are on our farms.
