ASHANTI REGION RECORDED 379 FIRE CASES

The Ashanti Regional branch of The Ghana National Fire Service has recorded an increment of about 100 percent fire cases at the end of the first quarter of the year 2012.

According to the Regional Commander Arhin Menasah who is the regional fire commander of the service, the region recorded 379 fire cases at the first quarter this year as against 199 fire cases last year 2011.The fire destroyed genus of properties with the estimated cost value of GH₵ 1,583,911 against GH₵ 768,190 last year. Out of the total of 379 cases recorded, 165 occurred in the month of January whilst 132 and 82 occurred in the months of February and March respectively. He further gave the areas that the fire occurred as shown in the table below

The Regional Commander told Central Press Newspaper that the area which recorded the highest fire cases in the first quarter this year is the domestic fires as in the table above followed by bush fires and fires at the side of vehicles with industry, electricity, others and institutions recording the lowest respectively. In addition, Mr. Arhin said apart from the properties that were destroyed by the fire, human life were not left out as they recorded one person dead and 263 persons also injured. According to him, the first quarter of every blessed year records the highest figures of fire cases due to the weather condition being dry season where by fire is easy to occur at any mistake that one will do. As most of the fire cases happened in various houses, he further said that much attention will be given to the people in the communities in the region by the GNFS on how to prevent fire from occurring, how to bring the fire under control and how to report fire cases to the GNFS. He also said industries, institutions; vehicle owners should also put positive measures in place to prevent fire outbreaks. Mr. Arhin explained that the service is well equipped to bring fire under control but, at times, late reporting of fire outbreak to the station. The lack of access to the scenes of reporting as well as the lack of water source is the problem that they are having now and he hopes Ghanaians will cooperate with them to reduce fire outbreak.