PHOTO: EXPRESS/FILE
A fire erupted in a forest near the Jatli Road. Rescue workers who had rushed to the site, though, found that they had insufficient and deficient equipment with the hose installed on their fire trucks too short to reach the blaze.
As a result, firefighters had to resort to other means of extinguishing the fire, including using hand-held fire extinguishers.
Soon after, they received a call about a fire near the Mandra market. But with teams engaged with the Jatli Road fire, the teams reached the site after a long delay.
As a result, several shops, with equipment and material worth millions of rupees were burnt to ashes.
A third fire erupted in a wood warehouse owing to a short circuit near Rawat where the rescue teams struggled to put out the blaze.
The fourth fire incident took place at a thread factory in the Amarpura area of Rawalpindi. This was the only blaze which rescue workers were able to tackle successfully and swiftly. However, rescue workers had to face immense difficulties in just getting to the location by navigating narrow lanes.
District Emergency Officer (DEO) Dr Abdul Rehman explained that their teams tried to perform the best they could within the available resources.
“We are humans and we make mistakes too, but we never deliberately show carelessness,” he maintained.
He added that they were in the process of recruiting new firefighters to fill vacancies in the department. Moreover, new equipment was also being procured.
We were changing the SOPs after which there would be multiple points in the city would be established where the workers will be available round the clock to immediately respond to any emergency situation.
He said appreciated the rescue workers that they were conducting firefighting operations up to five hours long while fasting.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 23rd, 2019.
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