Assistant Division Officer at the PR department of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), ADO II Alex King Nartey, has said that as much as fire service personnel are mandated to stop fires, they have also a duty to protect their lives.
The fire officer said this in an interview with GhanaWeb’s Etsey Atisu when he was shedding light on the functions, duties and the many misconceptions citizens of the country have about the GNFS.
ADO II Alex King’s statement comes at a time many Ghanaians complained about fire tenders reaching the venues of emergency without enough water.
To this, he replied, “You see, we don’t fight every fire with water. There are some fires that if you try fighting with water, you will kill yourself and anyone around you. …electrical fires. So maybe if you see your plugs at home or some fire around where your electric system or circuit is and out of desperation or fear, you carry a bucket of water and pour it, you will kill yourself instantly. Because water is a good conductor of electricity.
"As fire service, we came to work, not to die," he further added.
The officer went ahead to highlight some of the safety measures they put in place in the case of electrical fires to protect themselves and members of the area.
“If we get to a fire scene, we do our initial assessment and realise that this fire is an electrical fire, we just can’t fight it with water. We call on our control room to call ECG to cut power supply to the area. So, until power supply is cut, there is hardly anything we can do,” he added.
Watch the full interview below:
ABJ/WA
