‘Don’t play with electric and heat sources’

The Ghana Fire Service (GNFS) has advised young people to desist from playing with electric and heat sources to prevent fire outbreaks.

Already, from January 1 to 7, this year, the service has recorded 170 fire outbreaks nationwide.

In an interview with the Junior Graphic, the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the service, Prince Billy Anaglate, said domestic fire outbreaks were the highest, accounting for 75 out of the 170.

As of November 2014, the service had recorded 3,893 fires as compared to 5,496 in 2013.

He said the high number of fires recorded at the beginning of the year could be attributed to a number of factors including the harmattan season.

He explained that dry winds had taken the moisture content from all combustible materials (anything that could burn) which made it easy for such materials to catch fire.

Mr Anaglate said the Christmas and New Year festivities were also factors because during that period people made several electrical connections and extended electricity to many areas and gadgets which was not the case before.

He advised the public to check how safe their premises were by looking out for old electrical wiring systems, old switches and sockets, pointing out that if their colours had changed from white to brown it was an indication of overheating within the switch or socket and, therefore, they needed to be replaced.

Mr Anaglate said people should be more careful with the way they handled electrical gadgets and lighting systems because of the frequent power outages.

He observed that although the service had discouraged people from using candles because there were battery operated lamps, many still used then.

According to Mr Anaglate,  if it becomes necessary to use a candle, one must place it in an enamel or silver bowl with a bit of water so that the candle could go off by itself to prevent any fire outbreak.

“When we go round, we realise people placing candles on top of television sets and fridges, which is not the best,” he said.

He said the service was advocating fire safety education in the school curriculum “but until that comes into being, the service would continue to organise fire safety education for students.”

Mr Anaglate said schools and institutions should also ensure that there was someone to check that electrical gadgets that were not being used had been turned off properly.

Another observation he made was that during vacation, children make a lot of prank calls on the fire emergency number 192 and appealed to them to stop since they may be engaging the line when someone genuinely needs it.

Mr Anaglate said in cases of fire, one must call the fire service immediately and not wait until things had got out of hand.

He gave the control room number for fire outbreaks as 0302772446.