ILOILO City – The ideal number of personnel in a fire station is between 20 to 25. In Western Visayas, fire stations have 10 personnel on average. The region also needs more fire trucks and fire stations, according to the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP).
As BFP Region 6 kicked off the observance of Fire Prevention Month, it appealed to local government units for help.
Recruitment and training is continuous, according to Superintendent Crosbee Gumowang, assistant director for operations.
On the other hand, there are around 200 fire trucks in the region but not all municipalities have them, he said.
Ideally, each local government unit must have a fire truck, stressed Gumowang.
Western Visayas have 16 cities and 117 municipalities, with the cities and some towns having more than one fire trucks.
Several municipalities still do not have BFP fire trucks and fire stations, said Gumowang. These are the following:
* in Iloilo province – San Dioniso
* in Negros Occidental – Isabela and Pulupandan
* in Capiz – Pan-ay
* in Aklan – Batan, Banga, Lezo, Madalag, Makato, Malinao, and Nabas
* in Antique – Anini-y, Caluya and Hamtic
Gumowang said there were fire trucks in Sapi-an, Capiz and Tibiao, Antique but these were not local government donations to the BFP so the two should be counted with the others that do not have fire trucks.
Barbaza, Antique also has a fire truck but the local government has yet to turn this over to the BFP for lack of the required documents, said Gumowang.
To temporarily address the lack of fire trucks in some municipalities, BFP is observing “clustering.”
Towns are being grouped into several clusters. When fire strikes a town with no fire truck, those towns in the cluster with fire trucks must respond, said Gumowang.
“For example ‘yung Hamtic ay naka-cluster siya sa San Jose fire station. In case may sunog sa Hamtic, ang unang magre-respond is ‘yung San Jose fire station,” he said.
Regarding the need for more fire stations, Gumowang said BFP could only construct them on donated lots.
“The minimum of 400 square meters,” added Gumowang.
The BFP-6 assistant director for operations, however, stressed that the bureau makes sure this lack of personnel, fire trucks and fire stations does not hamper their operations.
He also said BFP-6 is intensifying its information dissemination that fire prevention is not only a one-month effort.
Around 500 BFP-6 personnel, fire volunteers, backed by 40 fire trucks took part in a motorcade on March 1, the first day of the Fore Prevention Month observance.
Gumowang said it was intended to raise awareness on the continuous practice of fire prevention.
“We would like to inform the public that fire prevention is a year-round concern,” he stressed.
BFP-6 will continue to distribute pamphlets, posters and other information-education materials containing fire safety tips to the public and conduct fire drills./PN
