Fire Service, Volta chiefs join forces against bushfires

Volta Regional Command of the Ghana National Fire and Preventive Service (GNFS) led by the regional commander ACFO1 Joy Ayim Ameyibor has collaborated with the Volta Regional House of Chiefs to help prevent bushfires as the dry season starts.

Some one hundred Paramount Chiefs who are members of the house on Friday, December 9 2022 held their last sitting of the year, where the GNFS visited and educated them on the menace.

ACFO1 Ayim said, to reduce or eliminate domestic fires and bushfires there must be collaborative work hence the need to partner with the Chiefs.

"Fire fighting and bush fire fighting is not one person's responsibility is a collaboration and we want to collaborate with the Chiefs so that this year, we'll prevent bushfires," the Commander told the press after the engagement with the Chiefs.

The Command also urged the Chiefs to help in the arrest and prosecution of perpetrators and must not intervene in favour of such people, this to serve as a deterrent to others.

"Anytime we collaborate with the Forestry Commission and the Police and we arrest the people, traditional authorities set in to intervene and we've made it vividly to them that we're pleading with them that they should help us prosecute some of them so that it will serve as a deterrent," he said.

The Command schooled the Chiefs on the PNDC law that is against bushfires and the protection of forests and presented to them copies with a call on them to extend the education to their subjects.

On the side of the Chiefs, they want the GNFS to empower fire volunteers, especially in rural areas and also asked them to extend education to other traditional areas in the region.

President of the House, Togbe Tepre Hodo III thanked the Command with a pledge to collaborate with the necessary stakeholders to make sure that, the region record zero bushfires this year.

The House received two different sizes of fire extinguishers with a demonstration on how to use them.

GNFS in the region is expected to hold similar engagement with the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in the region on the menace and also to organise an anti-bushfire campaign during the yuletide on the theme "Prevent Bushfire, Save Crops to Prevent Hunger, the Role of the Traditional Authorities".