By Correspondent
Early this year the inadequacies of the Harare Fire Brigade were exposed when goods worth thousands of dollars went up in smoke at a shopping mall ih the CBD.
The first fire tender pitched up without any water.
In 2013 a car sales garage along Robert Mugabe street was gutted by fire when the first fire tender turned up without water.
In 2020 a gas explosion ripped through a block of apartments in Harare’s Belvedere destroying property and injuring one.
Again the fire tenders came without water and had to search for it first.
All this while the building was burning and by the time water was found, the fire was beyond control.
Incompetent Or Unlucky?
These situations have led to accusations of incompetence against the Council Fire Brigade.
However, officials with Council argue that they are not to blame for such scenarios.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Lovemore Mafukidze explained that in an ideal environment there is nothing amiss.
“A fire tender carries an assortment of equipment and it also carries water.
“Even the one not running is always filled with water.
“But the water in the fire tender is what we call first aid water.
“It’s the water that we use as soon as we get at the scene while we look for alternative sources of water, what we call the street hydrants.
Mafukidze said the situation is different when they get to places where there are no hydrants.
Empty Hydrants
“But if there is no water in Mt Pleasant it means I have to summon a water carrier.
“We have one which carries 7 000 and another one 8 000 litres of water.
“Cities are designed with these water reticulation outlets in mind so that when fire fighters are using water in the tank, they can look for a hydrant and connect to their fire fighting appliances.
“But sometimes you don’t have water in a certain location.
“Our pumps are very powerful that’s why we normally get there and use hose reels that discharge smaller amounts of water.
“Though very effective, we will be trying to minimise the discharge while we are getting connection to the street hydrants.
“So water can run out while we are still trying to locate the street hydrant.”
However in light of acute water shortages it has become urgent to change tactics for the Fire Brigade.
In terms of Harare, a lot hydrants are either not working or are totally useless since there is nothing in the mains.
The onus is thus on the Fire Brigade team to come up with new tacticc to accommodate the missing hydrants.
