Sebatik and 3 areas to get fire aid stations
Published on: Thursday, February 16, 2017
Tawau: Four Fire Aid stations will be built in Balung, Merotai, Kalabakan and Sebatik, next year.Fire and Rescue Zone head here, Ismaidi Ismail said the development is expected to provide assistance to surrounding local communities especially those areas that have no such facility like in Sebatik Island."We will visit Sebatik next Monday (Feb 20) to look into a site that has been suggested which is near a police station in Bergosong.ADVERTISEMENT "Apart from this, we also emphasis on establishments of many Volunteer Firefighters Teams and Community Firefighters Teams in the district zone here that also covers Semporna, Kundak and Lahad Datu as an effort to reduce response time during fire incident," he said.Ismaidi said this in a press conference after annual assembly by the Fire and Rescue Department here at the marching field of Tawau Fire station here on Wednesday.Although the department targets each station to have at least 10 Community Firefighters Teams, he said, such number is too small for Tawau especially when the district recorded high incidences of fire in Sabah."Tawau has nine Community Firefighters Teams after the launching of a pioneer project in Kg. Tg Batu Keramat simultaneously with a one house, one fire extinguisher programme recently including those given certificates for its establishments of the teams here on Wednesday.ADVERTISEMENT "Semporna has 21 Community Firefighters Teams and we want to increase number of these teams in Tawau Zone here as an effort to help enhance awareness campaign on the danger of fire among the communities particularly in high risk areas like in squatter areas and water villages that have high density of settlements population," he said.Ismaidi also called on the teams' personnel to be the eyes and ears to the department in channelling information pertaining to water hydrants that are about 2,000 hydrants here compared to 75 officers and personnel who will be on duty during operation and emergencies.
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He also encouraged communities in squatters, water villages and residential parks to set up the Community Firefighters Teams so that they could be provided with basis knowledge on safety and fire as precautionary measures.In a related development, he said Tawau Zone received 30 cases of fire and 79 cases for search and rescue so far this year while there were 516 fire cases and 294 cases of search and rescue operations, last year. - Lagatah Toyos