Fire claims 28 lives, 699 rescued in Gombe in 2021 – Official

28 people died in fire disasters in Gombe State while 699 lives were saved by the state’s Fire Service in 2021.

This is contained in a data made available to our reporter in Gombe on Friday by Mr Mahmoud Salihu, a Deputy Operation Officer of the Service.

The data also revealed that property worth N7 billion were saved while property worth N2.23 billion were lost to fire disasters in the year under review.

Also, during the period, 280 incident calls were received while 59 persons recorded various degrees of injuries.

Salihu, in an interview with NAN on Friday, said the service was prepared to combat fire outbreaks in 2022.

He stated that the service would take proactive measures to ensure that its personnel were regularly trained in 2022 to combat fire outbreaks, while strengthening sensitisation.

The fire officer advised residents of the state to be more careful in handling issues that could result to fire disasters in view of the havoc fire could wreak on communities.

“If you have cooking gas, please always check properly to ensure that it is turned off before going to bed, and always check electrical installations for faulty cables while insisting experts fix any faults,” He said.

Salihu further advised that kitchen should be separated from store where “people often put inflammable materials like petrol and even generators; keep them far from your kitchen.

“Also, if you must put on generators, kindly ensure that you put off the generator before refueling it to avoid any fire disasters; this is important for residential areas and even shopping malls,” he said.

He further advised residents of the state to acquire firefighting equipment like fire blankets and extinguishers to quickly control fire before they become a disaster.

Salihu restated the commitment of the service to ensuring reduction in fire outbreaks across the state. Hence, he said the service would engage more in 2022 to strengthen awareness to residents.

He, however, warned those who engaged in false fire incident calls to desist from such act as it demoralised personnel’s morale during operations.