Chronicle Editor
Yvonne Ncube, Chronicle Reporter
The Bulawayo emergency services attend to more than 200 false fire reports monthly and spends more than US$10 000 on these wild -goose chase errands.
The city is struggling to collect garbage, fix overflowing sewers, repair roads, rehabilitate infrastructure, clear vegetation along roads and maintain a consistent clean water supply among other challenges yet is wasting resources attending to false reports.
In an interview, Bulawayo acting chief fire officer Mr Linos Phiri said false alarms are now a cause for concern as a lot of resources are being wasted attending to false reports.
He said the department was wasting fuel and paying overtime to workers as most false alarms come after hours.
Mr Phiri said it is difficult to tell whether a fire call is a prank or genuine hence the emergency services attend to all calls.
He appealed to residents to be responsible as the resources wasted on false alarms affected them as the owners of the city.
Mr Phiri said property may be burnt to ashes or people may die in a fire while available fire engines are attending to non-existent fires just because someone thought it would be funny to mislead emergency services.
He said the fire brigade uses approximately 2 000 litres of fuel weekly and close to 100 000 annually to attend to calls.
Mr Phiri said about $10,7 million was spent annually attending to calls and unfortunately most of them were false alarms.
“The number of false alarms we attend to on a weekly and monthly basis is a cause for concern because precious resources such as fuel and manpower are wasted,” said Mr Phiri.
He said emergency services are overwhelmed as a result of the false alarms leading to delays in attending to genuine calls.
“There are three types of false alarms. The first one is false alarm with good intent whereby someone sees smoke coming out of a house only to find out upon arrival that it’s a pot left on the stove unattended.
“The second one is electrical false alarm, this is where buildings’ emergency alarms ring due to power surges or short circuits but there will be no emergency to attend to. The third one is malicious false alarm where mischievous people make false reports to the Fire brigade which leads to wastage of resources,” said Mr Phiri.
He said the emergency services attend to about seven false alarm of good intent daily. Members of the public are advised to desist from making malicious calls to the emergency services as doing so might deny other residents that might be genuinely in need of help.
Mr Phiri said tracing the malicious false alarm culprits is hard as most of the time they use false contact numbers.
He said what compounded the problems was that the city had few ambulances which at times forced residents to resort to using private transport.
“We are operating with six ambulances instead of 15 which the city requires if it is to be adequately serviced,” he said.
Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) coordinator Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu however said council should find mechanisms of identifying those unscrupulous individuals making flase alarms.
“It doesn’t make sense for a normal resident to make a false alarm. Probably these are people who do not participate in the city’s budget processes and as such do not appreciate the costs involved,” said Mr Ndlovu.
He said the association on is part was educating residents on the dangers of making false alarms which might deny genuine distress callers help.
“We at times invite the Fire Brigade to explain the impact of these false alarms to service delivery,” said Mr Ndlovu. — @SeehYvonne
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