ILOILO City – Local firefighters have received from the city government two additional fire trucks seen to boost their capacity to respond to incidents, particularly in areas where access is difficult.
The Bureau of Fire Protection – Iloilo City now has a total of five fire trucks donated by the local government, and 19 overall including its own acquisitions.
“We would like our fire service station to be properly capacitated to combat fires, especially in areas that could not be penetrated by big fire trucks,” said Mayor Jose Espinosa III.
One of the two new fire trucks has a water capacity of 750 liters.
The other was smaller with 500 liters. This “could penetrate smaller roads that could not be accessed by bigger fire trucks,” said Senior Fire Officer 3 Aquilino Sampiano, BFP-Iloilo City chief of operations.
“They will be fed by our tanker,” Sampiano added.
Of the city’s 180 barangays, 150 (83 percent) were fire-prone, data from the City Planning and Development Office showed.
A recent fire in Jaro district claimed three lives aside from causing damage to properties.
In previous interviews City Fire Marshal Christopher Regencia said the difficulty in entering narrow roads was one of the reasons for the delay in fire response.
The around P5 million used to procure the two additional fire trucks was sourced from the city government’s about P100 million disaster fund.
“We will determine if there are still available funds so we could provide more equipment and facilities to emergency responders,” Espinosa added. (With Philippine News Agency/PN)
